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University Microfilms International 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 USA St. John's Road, Tyler's Green High Wycombe, Bucks, HP10 8HR 7ez«6t5 ! MAKKEN, DAVID JAMES I WORKERS! EDUCATION# THE REPRODUCTION OP WORKING CLASS c u l t u r e IN SHÊRPIELD,ENGLAND I AND "REALLY USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,* | THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY# PH.D., 1?7S

I International soon, zeeb road, ann arbor, mi48 io e I

0 1978

DAVID JAMES HAKKEN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WORKERS' EDUCATION:

THE REPRODUCTION OF WORKING CLASS IN

SHEFFIELD. ENGLAND AND "REALLY USEFUL KNOWLEDGE"

by

David James Hakken

Submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of

Doctor of Philosophy

in

Anthropology

Signatures of Commibkae:

Chairman:

L Dean of the Colle*

Date : H j^ ^ 1978

The American University Washington, D. C.

THE iMERlClH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY WORKERS' EDUCATION:

THE REPRODUCTION OF WORKING CLASS CULTURE

IN , ENGLAND AND "REALLY USEFUL KNOWLEDGE"

by

David Hakken

ABSTRACT

This dissertation reports the results of an ethnographic

attempt to investigate the actual and potential impacts of selected

credentialized, informal, and non-formal types of education for

working class people in a large Northern English industrial city with

a strong working class heritage. The field research on which it is

based was designed to address the problem of the origin of class-

related cultural differences. It is argued that such class-related variation

is a significant form of the in complex societies

documented by anthropology and that its source is to be traced to the

processes whereby are perpetuated, the province of educational

anthropology. Traditional approaches to educational anthropology in

complex societies are criticized for their stress on the role of education

in enculturating a conceived primarily as a stable. unified system of values, thereby providing little explanation for cultural

variation. Similarly, while radical and Marxist approaches have properly

stressed the role of education as a force in cultural domination, they

have provided little insight into the dynamics of development of

alternative or oppositional cultural forms. An alternative theoretical

approach to each of these--expanded reproduction--is developed.

The reproductionist approach was applied in the field through

participation in two types of activities : 1) participation in a number

of worker education activities--such as tutoring, organizing, and being

a student- - arranged through the network of Sheffield worker educators;

and 2) participation in various aspects of the local working class movement,

including trade unions, community organizations, and working class

political organizations. These data were supplemented by written and

historical and contemporary sources, including the mass media and

social science research.

Results of the research include the demonstration of a system

of workers' education in Sheffield with significant impacts on the repro­

duction of working class culture. Elements of a working class perspective

are also documented in several of the components of the system.

In the dissertation, these results are presented in the form of an extended

case study of one important component, Sheffield University's three-year

day release education for trade unionists, and in several brief

chapters outlining the possibilities for contributing to class cultural

reproduction at work, in shop steward education, through research, in the public educational system, in public adult education, at the Adult

Colleges of higher education for working class people, in the working class community, and through political education.

Conclusions stress the importance for practitioners, if their intent is to serve the working class movement and improve the quality of class , to be aware of the manner in which the impact of each particular program is mediated through the effects on class consciousness of the broader workers' education system.

Theoretically, it is argued that the reproductionist problématique has been demonstrated to provide a more fruitful approach to explaining sources of class .cultural variation. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First thanks to my wife and comrade Barbara Andrews, whose assistance in formulating the problem, carrying out the

research, and providing material support makes this dissertation

a collective product.

Next, thanks to the members of my dissertation

committee, David Rosen, Ken Kusterer, and Ruth Landman, for

their theoretical stimulation, insightful support, and meticulous criticisms.

In an anthropological work of this sort, much of the basic material is drawn from the lives of the various people with whom one establishes relationships in the field. Given

that my perceptions and conceptions of the nature of workers'

education are so largely drawn from them, my comrades and

friends in Sheffield can even be seen to share some measure

of responsiblity--though of course mediated through my own

limited points of view--for what appears on the following

pages. Thus an apology for whatever embarrassment and

difficulty I have caused them is perhaps as appropriate as an

acknowledgement of all they did for me. In the following

text they remain largely anonymous, except where they have

published material, in order that further difficulty and

embarrassment may be avoided. Here, however, I would like to

il express my deepest appreciation to the many individual

English workers and workers' educators--and their organizations- whose assistance and support made the research possible and who taught me so much, especially: Pete Abel, Dye Allen,

Gordon Ashbury, Martin Ashworth, Ruth Aylitt, Malcolm Ball,

Harry B a m e s , Michael Barratt Brown, Stephen Blomfield,

Steve Bond, David Blunkett, Mike Bower, Fred Brown, Willy

Brown, Dick Cabome, Pete Caldwell, Hillary Cave, Trevor Cave,

Sheila Clarke, Ed Coker, Ken Curran, Carlos Dabezies, John

Fearon, Robin Fielder, Ray Fisher, Jim Fyrth, Jenny Garber,

Margaret Gent, Doug Gowan, Eileen Grayson, John Grayson,

Chris Greene, Dennis Haffner, Sandra Haffner, John Halstead,

Bill Hampton, Roy Harrison, Ted Hartley, Julia Haseldine,

David Hayes, Bob Heath, Jill Heath, Peter Heathfield, Tony

Hitchings, Peter Horton, Ann Howard, Nick Howard, Helen

Jackson, Keith Jackson, Ann Jay, Ted Jenkins, Richard Johnson,

Maurice Jones, Rob Jones, Martin Jordan, Joel Kahn, Malcolm

Kisby, Sara Knight, Mary Kuper, Hugo Levie, Stuart Lowe,

Jim MacFarlane, Gerry Mealor, Jonathan Mirsky, Rhona Mirsky,

Bill Moore, Florence Moore, Roy Moore, Hugh Neal, Jenny Owen,

Steve Parks, Frank Pickstock, Simon Pickvance, Trevor Pitt,

Lillian Randall, Ken Randall, Garvin Reed, Caroline Reid,

Jim Richardson, Colin Rochester, Gordon Roderick, Raphael

Samuel, Seb Schmoller, Paul Simpson, Eleanor Singer, Jim

Staniforth, June Surtees, Judy Terrell, Jean Todd, Peter Todd,

Mathew Toulmin, Bill Walker, Mabel Walker, and Robin Williams.

Ill For special hospitality, unity, and criticism, thanks to

Janet Palfryman, Alan Baldwin, Jamie, and Jason.

I would also like to express my appreciation to those labor educators in the United States, particularly those involved in Workers' Education Local #189, for introducing me to workers' education and providing support for this research.

Special thanks also to Harvey Friedman, Wells Keddie, and

Martha Vicinus.

Funds for the fieldwork were provided by the Social^

Science Research Council of New York and for the write-up by the SSRC and American University. I would like to express my thanks to James Gibbs, David Schneider, and Raymond Smith

for early anthropological stimulation in method and theory,

and to fellow students and faculty at American University--

especially those in the Marxist anthropology reading group--

for their assistance. Karl, Nathan, the Tacky Family, and

Sandy White helped a lot, too.

The Sheffield working class helped me ground firmly

an internationalist perspective through the opportunity to

study their movement concretely. I would like to dedicate

this dissertation to those in the Sheffield working class

who continually strive to develop their own internationalism.

IV CONTENTS

Acknowledgements...... ü

List of Tables...... vii.

Introduction...... 1

Section I: The Problem of Workers' Education and its Relationship to Working Class Culture

Chapter One. Accounting for Class-related Cultural Differences in Complex Societies...... 14

Chapter Two. An Exploration of the Reproductionist Problématique Through a Study of British Working Class Culture...... 49

Chapter Three. Why a Focus on Workers' Education as a Way to Study Working Class Culture in Britain...... 69

Chapter Four. Field Research on Workers' Education and the Reproduction of Working Class Culture in Sheffield, England...... 100

Section II: Sheffield University Day Release Education for Trade Unionists: A Case Study

Chapter Five. Trade Union Day Release Education...... 135

Chapter Six. Assessing the Consequences of Sheffield Day Release: Consciousness...... 186

. V Chapter Seven. Assessing the Consequences of Sheffield Day Release: Action. 219

Chapter Eight. The Effects of Day Release— Union Practice, Broader Effects: Conclusions...... 262

Section III: Additional Components of the System of Workers' Education in Sheffield

Chapter Nine. Important Forms in the System of Workers' Education in Sheffield...... 304

Chapter Ten. Workplace-Based Education...... 314

Chapter Eleven. Shop Steward Education...... 329

Chapter Twelve. Research— The Codification of Workers' Knowledge and the Preparation of Materials...... 344

Chapter Thirteen. Public Education...... 361

Chapter Fourteen. Public Adult Education...... 376

Chapter Fifteen. Full-Time Higher Education for Working Class Adults...... 392

Chapter Sixteen. Community Experience and the Reproduction of Working Class Culture...... 409

Chapter Seventeen. Independent Political Education...... 425

Conclus ion...... 441

References Cited...... 448

VI LIST OF TABLES

1. 1976-77 Sheffield University Extramural Day Release Classes for Trade Unionists...... 140

2. Forms of Workplace-Related Working Class Learning...... 324

vri INTRODUCTION

This dissertation reports the results of an anthropological field study of workers' education in Sheffield,

England, carried out in 1976 and 1977. Neither the framework within which the field problem was developed nor the methods used to explore it is in the traditional mainstream of American anthropology; rather, an attempt is made in the thesis to project in a self-conscious manner an alternative theory and methodology. At the same time, the dissertation is critical of certain other common approaches to the study of culture and class and of the culture of the working class in particular, including the dominant Marxist approaches. In essence, the argument is that anthropological field methods can made a substantial contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of class societies, but that this contribution is only possible within the context of a major transformation of anthropological theory and a major redesigning of field methods.

The dissertation starts in Chapter One with an attempt to assess the general character of the anthropological study of complex societies, in which it is argued that the dominant empirical finding of this study is an association between class and cultural difference. A variety of theoretical attempts to explain this association are discussed and their shortcomings traced to fundamental flaws in the theory of culture which informs them, particularly the concept of as a theory of cultural transmission. A theory of cultural transmission derived from the Marxist tradition— reproduction— is projected as a more satisfactory theoretical alternative, but a critique is developed of the way this problématique has been explored as well. It is suggested that a fieldwork-based study of class-related cultural differences could make a substantial contribution to correcting the flaws identified. The remainder of Section I is devoted to the considerations which informed the design of such a project.

Chapter Two, for example, is a demonstration of how the issue of working class culture constitutes a promising domain for the study of class-related cultural differences within a reproductionist problématique or approach. The anthropological justification for selecting field sites which are particularly conducive to the study of particular phenomena--because the phenomena exist in a particularly sharp or instructive form at the site, rather than because of typicality or random selection— is used to direct attention to the study of working class culture in Britain. The emic orientation of anthropology--that is, the conviction that the

"natives" own conceptions and perceptions of their culture provide an important and valuable source of information regarding the dynamics of the culture— dictates an extended

consideration of a variety of British attempts to account for and explain British working class culture. Consideration of

these attempts is then linked to the critique of cultural 3 theory in Chapter One to arrive at a more useful alternative conception of culture.

Chapter Three returns to the question of field research design, particularly to the problem of establishing boundaries which will make the project manageable without distorting the major outlines of the dynamics which are the ultimate objects of study. A theoretical justification is developed for seeing symboling about the subordinate cultural system as a major part of its reproduction. The tradition of workers' education in Britain is explored historically as an example of such a subordinate cultural symboling process, and it is suggested that an approach to contemporary working class cultural reproduction through contemporary manifestations of workers' education would be fruitful.

In Chapter Four, the various threads of the first three chapters are brought together in a discussion of the research which was actually carried out in the field. The relative paucity of useful methodological guidance from within the discipline is noted and related to the dominant enculturationist problématique ; this critique is approached

from the point of view of the methodological considerations derived from the theory developed in the first three chapters.

The actual research design and its most notable feature--the

decision to concentrate upon the relationship of forms of workers' education and class cultural activity in a city--is

then described. The field site (Sheffield^) actually chosen

is described, as well as how and why it was chosen. The 4

chapter also contains a discussion of the actual research

experience. This concentrates in particular on the sticky

problem of finding a useful conceptualization of the emic

perceptions of my informants and the etic, scientific problem which it was my intention to investigate. The discussion also

includes an indication of the various "grounded theories"

(Glaser and Strauss 1967) developed in the course of the

research and their shortcomings. This chapter concludes with

a discussion of the major empirical conclusion of the research

project— the existence of a system of workers' education in

contemporary Sheffield--and a presentation of the typology of

forms which make up that system.

Although the problem addressed in the thesis and the methods employed are relatively unusual within anthropology,

it is important to understand that the research was carried

out scientifically and that this dissertation is conceptualized

as a scientific document. The broad scope of the problem,

the elaborate theory, and the unusual participatory methodology,

however, precluded any simple expository approach in reporting

the results of the research. After a variety of different

approaches to the problem of how to present a vast amount of

complicated data was tried, it was finally decided to adopt

the method of exposition contained in this document. This

method involves the inclusion of an extended case study of

one particular form of workers' education, the Sheffield

Extramurals day release program, which makes up Section II.

The four chapters in the Section include a description of the 5 program and an evaluation of its impacts along a number of dimensions, including consciousness, action, organizational praxis and other effects; and finally, a suramative conclusion regarding the relationship of the particular form to the reproduction of working class culture. It is my intention that this case study reveal as much as possible about the kinds of data generated in the field and the forms of argument which went into drawing conclusions from the data.

The inclusion of the extended case study is intended to allow a more cursory treatment of the other forms of the workers' education system in Sheffield. These other forms are discussed in Section III, and they include workers' education which, like day release, is related to the workplace

(workplace-based education, shop steward education, and research), forms of workers' education provided by the state

(public education, public adult education, and full time higher education for working class adults), and forms of workers' education which take place independent of the state and away from the workplace in the community (the community experience and independent political education). Each of the brief chapters in the section is constructed around a few examples selected for their illustrative value and a short discussion aimed to illuminate both the possibilities and the difficulties of carrying out workers' education in the particular niche occupied by the form.

The dissertation concludes by returning to two major underlying issues in a final chapter. One is the issue of the value of a reproductionist approach to the study of class- 6 related cultural differences, and by extension, the value of reproduction as a stance from which to approach the cultural study of complex societies within the discipline. It is argued that the dissertation demonstrates the value of this approach to anthropology, and it is then argued further that a concentration on the cultural dimension within an expanded reproductionist perspective can make a significant contribution to an integrated social science understanding of complex social formations.

In addition to this issue of theory, a second issue discussed is the applied dimension. It is argued that an increased ability to conceptualize a concrete system of workers' education and the place of any particular form within that system--the possibilities and limitations which make up the particular cultural ecological niche which the form inhabits in a structural sense— would be useful for those working in the kinds of programs described in the dissertation. Such conceptualizing will lead to better, or unified, working relations among the various forms, and that this in turn will contribute to the ability of the working class to reproduce

its culture more effectively. Such "practical theories" were

indeed examined through praxis in the field, and this opportunity to test theory directly was a major element in

insuring the quality of the research.

Thus, there are "theoretical" consequences of the

"application" of theory in practice; this is presented as a

justification for constructing a self-consciously dialectical 7 field method. It is also a reason why it is argued that the attempt to separate "theory" from "application" is of less value than is generally assumed, although it may be useful for tactical or research design purposes. Put simply, theory is no less theory because it is also relevant. Nonetheless, the theory must first be understood before its relevance can be established; one must be able to see the existence of

"knowledge" before being able to decide if it is "really useful."

It is also appropriate in an introduction to clarify what the dissertation is not. First, it is not an attempt at a thorough analysis of the reproduction of British working class culture; rather it is an exploration of the role of a particular set of cultural practices--workers' education--in that reproduction. For example, the perceptive reader will notice in the pages that follow a number of characteristics of workers' education which are less than laudatory. It is observed in Chapter Fourteen, for example, that there are very few women involved in the more formalistic forms of workers' education; a significant male bias in most organized forms of workers' education is easily demonstrated. Similarly, in

Chapter Sixteen, passing reference is made to the fact that until recently, it was difficult for non-whites to participate in the extensive network of workingmen's clubs in Sheffield; such references could be developed into a trenchant critique of racialism or racism within the working class movement. 8

Sexism, racism, and other significant problems in the reproduction of working class culture (such as Ireland) are not the focus of this dissertation, partly for reasons of space and partly out of a conviction that science proceeds best by attention to one question at a time. The question to which this dissertation is addressed is the question of class-related cultural differences. To those who might argue that racism and sexism are more important, I would respond by saying that an understanding of more autochthonic aspects of working class culture could usefully both precede and accompany any attempt to transform its reproduction. I would add that in my opinion the existing forms of workers' education are at least theoretically sufficient to deal with racism, sexism, and Ireland, although the campaign to use them for such purposes has barely begun and the success of such a campaign is by no means a foregone conclusion. One would of course hope that the material which is discussed in this dissertation would constructively inform controversy over such matters.

It is equally important although somewhat more difficult to specify the role in this dissertation of the notion that working class culture remains a significant but subordinate cultural system in contemporary Britain. In

Section One it is argued that, while having an important influence on the course of social reproduction, working class culture neither controls the conditions of its own reproduction nor exercises hegemony over social reproduction. There are really two Issues being addressed here; one is whether working class culture is still subordinate, and the other is whether it is still significant. With regard to the former,for example, it has been argued within the Labour Party, particularly in the

1950's and 1960's, that the capitalism of the "mixed" economy has provided a framework for achieving working class goals and insuring working class interest. Translated into cultural terms, this is an argument for a kind of "cohegemony" of culture which parallels a "mixture" of socialism and capitalism in the economy. A sometimes similar and sometimes converse argument has been made by others, that working class culture is no longer significant— that it is more or less rapidly dis­ appearing in the face of mass media, transport, etc., and the promotion of "national" or "popular" culture.

Numerous attempts have been made to confront these issues directly (Barratt Brown 1972; Hoggart 1957). This dissertation is based on the notion that additional theoretical and empirical work can make a significant contribution to improving the way in which such issues can be handled. The theoretical work in the first section, for example, is aimed at clarifying the elements and relationships of the conceptual field within which the problem of class-related cultural differences exists. For example, it is hypothesized in Chapter

Three that subordinate cultural systems cannot in general depend upon "normal daily life" to insure cultural reproduction; they must develop special institutions for more conscious symboling if they are to be reproduced as cultural systems. 10

In this manner, a theoretical explanation is developed for both the existence of workers' education institutions and the character of their functioning.

Such theoretical work is then put to special use in anthropology. Once it is carried out and the major conceptual issues addressed, broad operational definitions are developed to allow one to test the quality of the theoretical work by apprehending a variety of relevant phenomena in the field.

In this dissertation, increasingly sophisticated theories grounded in participation in field events themselves are developed to account for these events. These grounded theories are informed by and compared to the previous theoreti­ cal work; the previous conceptualizations are revised to take into account the confirmed and disconfirmed aspects of grounded theories. The conceptualizations in no way dictate the perception of empirical events, although they assist a critical perspective which allows one to penetrate beneath the surface appearances of phenomena.

In this dissertation, the notion of a system of workers' education in Sheffield and the properties of this system emerged primarily out of empirical work, whereas the notion of working class culture as a subordinated cultural system is a notion developed more through theoretical practice. In Chapter

Three it is argued that something like a system of workers' education is a likely aspect of subordinate class cultural reproduction, and so the description of a system of workers' education in Sheffield tends to confirm the usefulness of the 11 general theory. A more substantial confirmation of such notions awaits a more exhaustive analysis of all of the cultural systems reproducing within the relevant social formation.

Thus, while the general reproduction of working class culture and the question of whether or not working class culture is a subordinate system are not the specific focus of this dissertation, it is obvious that these issues are intimately related to the specific question addressed in it, that of class-related cultural differences. It is my perception that both the former questions require a more thorough analysis of other cultural elements before they can be the focus of field-oriented research, and that general theoretical work regarding the latter question and exploring a reproductionist approach should also be carried out first. However, all three questions are closely related; they are part of the same scientific problématique (Althusser 1977) in that they inhabit the same conceptual field; they are questions which "make sense" in regard to each other. It is the intent of the Section which follows to communicate why I think this problématique is of particular importance for contemporary anthropology. NOTES

1 Sheffield is a major industrial city, about 175 miles North of , with a strong working class tradition among its population of about 500,000.

12 SECTION I:

THE PROBLEM OF WORKERS’ EDUCATION

AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO

WORKING CLASS CULTURE CHAPTER ONE

ACCOUNTING FOR CLASS-RELATED CULTURAL

DIFFERENCES IN COMPLEX SOCIETIES

For a variety of very good reasons, anthropologists have found themselves studying culture in more and more complex social settings. This dissertation is based on a reading of such anthropological study in complex societies which stresses a) the extent to which such study documents a correlation between the structure of stratification in

complex societies and cultural differences, and b) the extent

to which no satisfactory account for such a correlation is provided. In other words, while anthropology has documented

cultural stratification, particularly a correlation between

culture and class, it has failed to provide a theoretical understanding of this correlation either in general or in

regard to specific social formations or "cultures."

In general, this dissertation aims to demonstrate how a shift in theoretical perspective can allow the

development of field projects which may ultimately lead to

an elaboration of theory adequate to the empirical work.

The purpose of the present chapter is to focus particularly

on the shortcomings responsible for the lag of theory behind

practice, and to suggest the necessary changes in perspective.

14 15

Remaining chapters in this section will focus on the develop­ ment of a field problem and project incorporating the

theoretical shift in focus, and they introduce the conclusions reached in carrying out the project. The two remaining

sections demonstrate the results of the fieldwork and

substantiate the conclusions reached.

In particular, this chapter will be composed of four parts: 1. a brief section demonstrating how the literature

in several anthropological sub-fields manifests the

correlation between stratification and culture ; this will be

largely oriented to study in societies with a "class"

structure; 2. a discussion of the insufficiencies of several

specific kinds of attempts to deal theoretically with this

correlation; 3. a discussion of the deeper, more basic

theoretical roots of these insufficiencies, connecting them

to deficiencies in the enculturationist approach to cultural perception; 4. the projection of an alternative approach or

"problématique" which is identified as a reproductionist approach to cultural perpetuation.

Although the discussion will raise several complicated points of anthropological theory, some will be treated only briefly. This is partly because of limitations of space,

but partly also because the best of the anthropological

tradition stresses the resolution of theoretical issues

through empirical work, and it is this latter which the

dissertation aims to stress. 16

Class-related Cultural Differences as a Dominant Finding of the Anthropological Study of Class Societies^

The anthropological study of kinship and family is perhaps the clearest example of how class-related variation in patterns of values and behavior dominate the literature.

Bott's seminal work Family and Social Network (1971) made class an essential variable in the analysis of kinship in complex society. In this work she developed an hypothesis regarding the functioning of family networks in which class is the major independent factor. Young and Willmott's Family and Kinship in East London (1962) was, unlike Bott's work, not class comparative, but the importance of the class variable was certainly stressed. These studies were among the first in a tradition of British work on kinship in which class was a major part of the approach (Willmott and Young 1960; Rosser and Harris 1965; Firth, Hubert, and Forge 1970). This tradition has developed in the United States as well. Schneider and Smith, in their study of Class Differences and Sex Roles in American Kinship (1973), make the following comments :

The lower class family has a perfectly coherent and well-organized family structure system which differs from the family structure....The lower class stresses different patterns of solidarity and lacks the emphasis on nuclear family isolation (p. 2).

An emphasis on the importance of class is equally

a part of the anthropological study of communities. Withers'

(1945) scudy Plainville was based on a community originally

selected because it was supposed to contain no class variation, but Withers was forced to conclude "every item is 17 involved in class" (p. 125). Similar conclusions were a part of the whole Yankee City series directed by Warner (1941;

Warner and Srole 1945) and the Middletown books of the Lynds

(1929, 1937). Both of these projects were attempts to use the community study focus of anthropology in small towns in complex societies. In Britain, a tradition of such studies developed in the post-war years, including Dennis, Henriques, and

Slaughter (1969), Mogey (1956), Willmott (1963), Stacey (1960) and Jackson (1972). This tradition is summarized and criticized in Frankénberg(1969), while Arensberg and Kimball provide a different summarizing approach: While explicitely anti-

Marxist, in contrast to Frankenberg's , Arensberg and Kimball acknowledge the importance of class (p. 190).

A third area of anthropological study where class has been recognized as of particular importance is linguistics.

Following Ferguson's study of "Diglossia" (1959), a number of linguists have attempted to develop empirical studies which document the existence of significant language differentials in contemporary societies. Perhaps the most significant of these is Labov, whose classic The Social Stratification of

English (1966) was a landmark of linguistic method as well as a recognition of the important role of class in determining language behavior. The whole field of sociolinguistics (see

Fishman 1972) has a major focus on class and language; this study had developed far enough for Edwards to devote a study exclusively to summarizing Language in Culture and Class (1976). 18

Applied anthropology in contemporary industrial societies has focused on a number of areas, including educa­ tion, community development, and poverty. In education, the class variable has been clearly recognized (See Jackson

1964 and Jackson and Marsden 1966); indeed, it is the theoretical center of the work of a number of those who follow Bernstein (1971; see also Lawton 1968). Bernstein also develops an approach which bridges into working class language; his work is criticized in Chapter Two following. It is the area of poverty where the anthropological approach is probably most familiar, particularly Lewis' (1966) notion of a "culture of poverty." A number of studies using this notion, and relating the culture of poverty to education, are critiqued in Leacock (1971). While the notion of the culture of poverty is relatively new, the idea of concentrat­ ing on poor communities has been a part of anthropology at least since Whyte (1943), whose work also developed in the direction of industrial anthropology (1948).

While some studies have attempted to make the culture of poverty more of an ethnic than class variable (e.g.,

Moynihan 1967), others have found such attempts rather fruitless (Liebow 1966). Attempts to develop a study of contemporary societies in isolation from a recognition of class as a dominant aspect of culture have been largely abandoned; these include most notably the approaches of

Mead (1965), Gorer (1948), Mead and Metraux (1953), and 19

Kluckhohn (1961), who worked within a framework called the national character approach. Most anthropologists would now follow the approach of Goldschmidt (1950) and Eisenstadt

(1961) who recognize the importance of class in the study of the United States and complex societies, respectively.

A Critique of Four Approaches to Explaining Class-Related Cultural DifferencesZ

It is evident from the foregoing that the anthro­ pological approach--which stresses participatory observation of various aspects of social life within one form or another of "holistic" framework--has contributed much toward the establishment of a considerable record of class-related variation in behavior and values. If one looks in the anthropological literature for explanatory models of this record, however, one finds little of significant value.

Much of the literature on culture in industrial societies simply takes class as an inevitable, non-problematic aspect of such societies. Although such a perspective is to be favored over those which assume the non-existence of significant, class-related cultural differences, it is not adequate. Of more interest, but still inadequate, are several perspectives which, in one way or another, try to account for this class-related variation. These latter perspectives--which I shall call deviancy, embourgeoisement. culture of poverty, and liquidationist— are to be dealt with

in turn. 20

Deviancy

As indicated above, the national character approach makes little reference to variation in culture. This approach is best seen as the application to complex societies of the

"culture and personality" orientation (Singer 1961), the dominant theoretical trend in the early to mid-Twentieth

Century in American anthropology. Almost by definition, attempts to ascribe a dominant national character to the

United States preclude any particular attention to significant variation. The persistent recognition of such variation forced some people within the psychologically-oriented national character tradition to develop their theory to the appearance of an account for deviations from the "national character" which were systematically manifest among less affluent, less mobile sectors of the American populace.

In "American Culture : General Orientations and Class

Patterns" (1947), the Kluckhohns acknowledge that there are differences in patterns of culture by class. They argue that

such differences are related to the stratification which is held to be an inevitable consequence of the division of

labor, but that social change finds its source in specific

individuals and is not related to such cultural difference.

The class lines in the United States are not rigid, they

argue, because "the cult of the average man keeps class

lines from being fixed" (p. 112). In sum, the thrust of

their argument is to explain away class-related cultural 21 difference, rather than to explain it. When they reach a specific discussion of "lower class" cultural variations, the pattern presented is largely an incomplete, negative transformation on the patterns which dominate the national character.

This tendency to view variant values through a prism of some dominant group is developed into an explicit theory by Francis Hsu. The Study of Literate (1969), in general an appeal for anthropological study of complex societies, combines a psychological approach with an argument that class is really not important (p. 29). Any deviation from the dominant cultural model is of no theoretical importance ;

"Once we have adequate knowledge of how the elite group or groups function, we are fairly sure of being able to understand the aspirational direction of the villagers and others situated below them" (p.31). For Hsu, the central cultural system is exemplified in the patterns of the elite.

In essence, neither of these approaches explains much other than how the behavior of certain "non-elites" appears to those in elite positions. As such, they are more ideology than theory, and they would be of little concern were it not for the

fact that their central tenets recur in other approaches.

Emb ourgeo i s ement

This theory holds simply that whatever may be distinctive about various groups in society is being eradicated by the inexorable adoption of the life style of 22 the dominant middle class— that is, society is being

"embourgeoisified." A variant of this theory has particular importance for the history of the working class movement in

Britain; this is discussed in the following section. This perspective pervades much of the literature on culture in complex societies (See Schneider and Smith 1973:109, for example). A particularly interesting example of the role of this perspective is evident in Anderson's (1973) attempt to provide an overview of M o d e m Europe as an anthropological culture area. Modern Europe, an Anthropological Perspective.

Anderson devotes significant attention to the history of

European culture, arguing that in traditional Europe, there was cultural uniformity, but this uniformity was composed of a distinct culture for each of three groups--the aristocrats, the burgers, and the peasants: "For each class, its culture stood as a symbol of its special place in society." Following the break-up of traditional Europe, a distinctive working class culture did develop, but it is no longer an important cultural form; indeed, "The dominant process of European culture is the of the working class to bourgeois standards " (p. 28). Modern Europe, he holds, is dominated by a single culture, with workers adopting a middle class variant of upper class culture (pp. 131, 132). o Whatever the ethnographic validity of embourgeoisement. as a theory it can no way explain the existence of class- correlated cultural differences. It is, in fact, an attempt 23 to dissolve the problem which I have argued is the dominant empirical finding of existing anthropological study in complex society; it argues that the problem is no longer of interest rather than explaining it.

Culture of Poverty

This theory marks a substantial break with the two previous, constituting an acceptance of a particular form of stratification-related cultural difference as a theoretical object and attempting to provide an explanation for it. The theory is justifiably connected with Oscar Lewis, because

Lewis was one of the first anthropologists to make the culture of subordinate groups in complex societies the specific focus of his research. Lewis laid out the basis of his argument in a 1966 paper:

The phrase is a catchy one and is used and misused with some frequency in the current literature. In my writings it is the label for a specific conceptual model that describes in positive terms a of Western society with its own structure and rationale, a way of life handed on from generation to generation along family lines. The culture of poverty is not just a matter of deprivation or disorganization, a term signifying the absence of something. It is a culture in the traditional anthropological sense in that it provides human beings with a design for living, with a ready-made set of solutions for human problems, and so serves a significant adaptive function. This style of life transcends national boundaries and regional and rural-urban differences within nations. Wherever it occurs, its practitioners exhibit remarkable similarity in the structure of their families, in interpersonal relations, in spending habits, in their value systems and in their orientation in time (p. 3).

In a review study of many works attempting to use the "culture of poverty" concept, Leacock (1971) makes many criticisms 24 similar to those raised above as objections to the deviancy approach. She sees culture of poverty studies tending to ignore the historical traditions of the poor, and to concentrate on the absence of middle class traits (p. 12); she also identifies a tendency to conceptualize the culture of poverty in terms of values which are the dialectical opposite of the middle class (p. 29). Interestingly, she refrains from including Lewis in her critique, although his formulations, his own protestations to the contrary notwith­ standing, did contribute to some of the more egregious uses of the notion. For example, in the 1966 article, although he calls his notion a description "in positive terms," he also makes comments which cast doubt on how positive he really wants to be:

...(T)he culture of the poor is, on the whole, a comparatively superficial culture. There is in it much pathos, suffering, and emptiness. It does not provide much support or satisfaction; its pervading mistrust magnifies individual helplessness and isola­ tion. Indeed, poverty of culture is one of the crucial traits of the culture of poverty (p. 9).

The users of the notion have placed great emphasis on the negative aspects of the culture of poverty. The 1965

Moynihan Report (The Negro Family : The Case for National

Action) has been criticized as an attempt to blame poverty on the poor (see Rainwater and Yancey 1967). Interestingly, whereas in the United States, the culture of poverty has been most frequently used to justify various forms of inaction against racial discrimination, the typical object 25 of culture of poverty-type elitist pseudo-science in Britain is the working class. For example, consider this from a

British community study:

The Ship Street people who remain in the locality and carry on the tradition do so because owing to the role restrictions caused by the rigidity of their group customs, they are unable to reach emotional maturity. Ego development is impaired, with a consequent wealth of what, to a non-Ship Street resident, appears to be behavioral difficulties.. The people themselves view these divergencies as normal behavior (Kerr 1958:190).

There is, of course, little to separate such culture of poverty "studies'* from the deviancy approach described above.

I think that the primary theoretical shortcoming of the culture of poverty approach is the separation out of situational adaptations to unemployment, an occasional aspect of many people's lives, and the unself-conscious mixing of these situational adaptations with the class-specific cultural traits described above. Uncritically, this theoretical albatross is treated as a permanent mode of adaptation. This problem is exacerbated by Lewis' focus on the family rather than the class as the proper unit of anthropological study in complex societies; it suffers as well from the necessity of avoiding confrontation with the reactionary political climate into which he initially projected his ideas.

Liquidationis t

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, a number of attempts were made to confront directly some of the theoretical

implications of the culture of poverty notion. By and large,

these theories of class-related cultural differences were 26 sympathetic to poor and minority peoples and highly critical of the abusiveness of some culture of poverty perspectives.

Most importantly for the purposes at hand, the critique attempted to identify some of the major theoretical weak­ nesses of the culture of poverty approach. Unfortunately, each of the approaches ends up dissolving the problem of class-related cultural differences in the process.

Valentine (1968), for example, bases his critique of the culture of poverty on the argument that such approaches misidentify a subculture as a culture. He quotes Kroeber's discussion of approvingly, including Kroeber's discussion of the complementarity of patricians and plebians as comparable to the stomach and limbs.^ Total cultures have

"coherence" (p. 108). Valentine also recognizes that under­ lying the culture of poverty debate is a debate over the relationship of culture and class. In the following comment, his justifiable critique of the specific shortcomings of the culture of poverty approach is unjustly extended to include any attempt to identify class-related cultural variation :

Most of the questions that have been raised are related in one way or another to this central issue of the relationship between culture and . It has been suggested that lower-class life is more variable and heterogeneous than common uses of the culture concept indicate. It has been shown that analysis in terms of the "culture of poverty" may distract attention from crucial structural characteristics of the stratified social system as a whole and focus it instead on alleged motivational peculiarities of the poor that are of doubtful validity or relevance. Several investiga­ tions of the problem of class cultures suggest that the cultural values of the poor may be much the 27

same as middle-class values, merely modified in practice because of situational stresses (pp. 16-17).

One must certainly welcome the stress on "crucial structural characteristics of the stratified social system as a whole" as opposed to the focus on individual psychologies which characterize the deviance and more reactionary culture of poverty approaches. However, Valentine makes no attempt to explain why the particular "modifications" adopted by the poor are taken rather than others; situational stresses are not followed out systematically to demonstrate how they can account for the changes manifest. At the same time, Valentine stresses culture as a mode of adaptation, but because "the culture of poverty" lacks the "coherence" of a "complete" cultural system, it does not qualify as a "real" culture.

The usefulness of his calls for further research is limited by his liquidation of the theoretical object.

The ambivalence between viewing the culture of the poor as a viable adaptation and "systemic" system, on the one hand, and as merely an expedient adjustment to given conditions, on the other, is more pronounced in Carol Stack's important monograph. All Our Kin (1974). Stack goes beyond Valentine to argue that the "crucial structural characteristics" referred to by Valentine are fundamental to the existing

social order, "necessary for the maintenance of the existing

social order " (p. 127), She provides a trenchant analysis

of how the life experience of her informants leads them to 28 develop a whole range of cooperative, collective adjustments which in many cases contradict the mainstream values.

She ultimately concludes that these adjustments are situational but one feels that she is hedging her bets as to whether they should be considered a separate culture, albeit not a culture of poverty:

Mainstream values have failed many residents of The Flats. Nevertheless, the present study shows that the life ways of the poor represent a powerful challenge to the notion of a self-perpetuating culture of poverty. The strategies that the poor have evolved to cope with poverty do not compensate for poverty in themselves, nor do they perpetuate the poverty cycle. But when the mainstream values fail the poor, as they have failed most Flats' residents, the harsh economic conditions of poverty force people to return to proven strategies for survival (p. 129).

This kind of conclusion seems somewhat ambivalent, and it is contradictory to a previously articulated favorable evaluation of a "bi-cultural" model, developed by Rodman and, of all people, Valentine (pp. 125 and 126).

The most thorough attempt to steer through this difficult theoretical channel in a self-conscious manner is

Schneider and Smith's Class Differences and Sex Roles in

American Kinship (1973).^ Schneider and Smith set out, like

Valentine and Stack, to "challenge the assumption that differences in family structure are simply a product of poverty or disorganization," but they also want to provide an adequate theoretical understanding of "the basis of class differences in family and kinship relations " (p. 1). Like

Valentine, they both attack the looseness of the use of the 29 subculture concept, and they assume that all Americans share the same kinship system.

For Schneider and Smith, the apparent contradiction between the acknowledgement of class-related differences in kinship (quoted on page 16 above) on the one hand and an assumption that all share the same kinship system on the other is resolved through a distinction between kinship as a "pure" cultural system— that is, a system of symbols and meanings— and the kinship system as "implemented" in behavior. All

Americans, they claim, share the same system, but the inter­ action of this system with other systems, when implemented, accounts for the differences in observed behavior--"the differences derive from the non-kinship components" (p. 10).

Thus, Schneider and Smith attempt to provide an answer to the questions begged by Stack through a "radical" attempt to maintain the distinction between culture and social structure^ presented by Valentine. They argue :

There are differences of culture related to class, but they are part of a single system which varies according to internally consistent logical principles and are at the same time an expression of the different and varying life experiences of individuals, particularly in regard to the occupational milieu. These cultural differences are not isolated from each other; they are available to all individuals. In general, they are present in all individuals as potential means of constructing social reality. Thus the employment and mode of patterning varies in a systematic way between classes (p. 29).

One is tempted to conclude that Schneider and Smith, approving of Valentine and Stack's emphasis on structural constraints, especially economic ones, are using such 30 constraints to account theoretically for differences in kinship behavior. In fact, however, I think they follow a different, more complex tack. If the differences result when the "pure" system is brought into contact with other "pure" domains, in the process of implementation of the cultural system, then there must be something about one of these other

"pure" domains which results in differences. Sure enough, it would seem that the difference is to be located in the

"class" system as a cultural system. Different forms of behavior are for Schneider and Smith associated with "lower class" and "middle class." The middle class, for Schneider and Smith, emphasizes rationality in relating means to ends, whereas the lower class emphasizes security (p. 25). The lower class has "a general cultural orientation which stresses security and traditional attitudes to authority and it involves particularistic relations springing from local community, ethnic, and kinship ties " (p. 29). Thus, it turns out that the differences are traceable to a normative difference which is at the same time a cultural difference :

We believe that there are systematic differences in normative structure between classes which derive not only from the instrumental aspects of social roles, but also from the cultural or evaluative aspects of differential orientations and their application to action in the world of social behavior (p. 110).

It would thus appear that in order to explain the class-related differences in behavior, Schheider and Smith have to violate their tenet of keeping the cultural separate from the social, the "pure" from the "implemented." This is 31

extremely confusing; either one is identifying different

cultural systems derived from observed differences in behavior, or one is arguing that they are the same cultural

system but that the system emphasizes different behaviors for people in different structural positions. If the latter is

the case, then there is no cultural explanation for the

dif ferences in culture ; the explanation must be found outside

the cultural system, in the "occupational" system, etc. Like

Valentine, Schneider and Smith offer no explanation as to why

"security" rather than "rationality" is stressed by the lower

class; they don't even offer the kind of "adaptive" arguments

included by Stack. As pointed out above, they also believe

that the lower class is being "embourgeoisified" anyway, so

the problem of explaining class differences is one that won't

be with us for long. In essence, their approach is "liquida­

tionist" both in regard to the likely disappearance of the

problem and in apparently dissolving it into social structure.

Specifically in regard to Schneider, Sahlins has argued that

there is little real value to attempting to maintain a

systematic disjunction between culture and social structure

(1976; 106 ff). Moreover, in another paper (1972), Schneider

himself makes a radical critique of the study of kinship,

doubting if it really exists as anything more than a creation

of anthropology. This would seem to cast additional doubt on

the utility of a theoretical model which stresses a "pure"

domain of kinship.

In their own way, each of these three "liquidationist"

approaches have contributed significantly to the critique of 32 right-wing culture of poverty theories, and for this they are to be commended. Unfortunately, each of them has taken the culture of poverty approach as the exhaustive model for any relationship between culture and class; this is particularly true of Schneider and Smith and Valentine. I suggested above that the problem of the culture of poverty notion was that it abstracted out the wrong unit (an occasional aspect of people's lives, i.e., unemployment) as its focus, rather than taking the broader lives of working people as the locus of the distinctive culture. Instead of calling for a stress on the investigation of working class culture and searching here for explanation of class-related cultural differences, each of the liquidationists' approaches is based on a static model of class which accepts the dominant class' terminology of lower, middle, and upper. A voluminous literature in has pointed out the limitations of this approach (see Westergaard and Res1er 1976). I think it is important to realize that uncritical use of this static class model is as much a consequence of a Warner, Yankee City anthropological legacy as it is a case of bad sociology grafted on to anthropology.

In sum, all of the approaches discussed fail to provide a theoretically satisfying account for class-related cultural differences. Two of them (the embourgeoisement and the liquidationist) end up dissolving the anthropological problem by either arguing that it will go away or that its explanation is to be found outside of culture. The other 33 two (deviancy and the culture of poverty) have a pronounced tendency to view the distinctive of non­ elite groups through the eyes of the elite; thus, they are often little more than self-serving ideology. Although I have tried to separate the various approaches into these categories for ease of exposition, it is interesting that several of the theories could be placed in several of the categories. Schneider and Smith, for example, seem to me to verge on the deviancy approach in their negative characteriza­ tion of lower class culture; they support embourgeoisement.

they do acknowledge the existence of distinctive patterns of behavior among those living in poverty; and they do appear to relegate the problem to another level of social life, although

this is obscured by their problems of maintaining distinctions between culture and social structure. What this suggests is :

a) that there are some fundamental theoretical problems shared by all these approaches, problems which keep them from dealing

directly with b) an important aspect of social experience-- what I have called class-correlated differences in culture--to which they are all trying to relate. A theoretical stance must be found which integrates the exogenous variables into

the system of cultural causality and thereby embraces the

cultural differences rather than liquidating them.

The Shared Theoretical Source of the Difficulties

All of the theoretical approaches discussed share a

standard view of culture developed in the American anthro- 34 pological tradition. In this view, a cultural system has the following features, among others : a) it is a system of values, or ideology, (or symbols upon which values are erected);

b) it is some form of coherent totality, finding coherence in the logical interrelationships of its symbolic, value or ideological elements, and totality in its functioning.

A wide variety of theoretical critiques has developed with regard to this type of cultural model, such as the critique of functionalism and the critique of the usefulness of attempting to maintain a systematic distinction between culture and social structure. The position taken in the standard view on how cultural systems perpetuate themselves is less often a focus of criticism. The term used to describe this process in the standard model is "enculturation." As an extra-somatic system of values, it is logical that cultures must be learned; however, this learning is largely concep­ tualized as a process of introducing or "teaching" the 7 cultural system to the young. The job of enculturation is

seen as largely carried out by the nuclear family or some related variety of small, living group unit--mothers teach

daughters and fathers teach sons. Educational anthropology grew up as an applied sub-discipline in response to the

difficulties associated with the fact that in culturally heterogenous and developing societies, schools carry on both

enculturation and acculturation simultaneously. As a sub­

discipline, educational anthropology was developed within the 35

same largely individual-and psychologically-oriented problem-

atique which dominates American anthropology in general. While

some theoretical debate has gone on in this school over the

issue of the relative importance of early child training

experiences vs. later ones, the field has largely been non-

controversial; that is, enculturation has been taken as an

obvious, necessary, and easily conceptualized process. The

only real job for educational anthropology was the documentation

of how it was done in different cultures.

A wholly different model of culture has also been

developed within American anthropology, however. Identified

as materialist by most of its adherents, this model stresses

culture as a mode of adaptation to the particular ecological niche in which the human group finds itself. While values

are a part of this conceptualization of culture, the stress

is on how various aspects of the material environment--abundance

of resources, other groups, etc.— affect the operation of the

cultural system. There is no general attempt to make a

radical distinction between culture and social structure.

While there are varying degrees to which the system is con­

ceived as "functional," the role of symbols and values in maintaining it as an ongoing system is seen as much less

important. Consequently, there has been little emphasis

within this problématique on "enculturation." Sahlins (1976)

has argued, in fact, that most forms of this materialist

approach have a tendency toward reductionism, leaving little

scope for initiative to the superorganic, seeing it as largely

reactive. 36 Now the "enculturationist" approach provides little

scope for explaining the existence of class-related cultural differences. If one receives one's values from one's parents, and one's values are a part of a coherent cultural

system, then there is no way to explain the existence of any

systematic difference. Whatever differences do exist must either be a consequence of inadequate enculturation (Kerr's

inability "to reach emotional maturity") or they must be a systematic distortion of the coherent value pattern, a distortion consequent to forces outside the cultural system and therefore beyond the scope of anthropology. For this reason, the kinds of inadequacies found frequently in the various anthropological approaches to class-related cultural variation are traceable to the underlying conceptualization of the culture process. That is, the underlying theory

(enculturation as the mechanism of cultural perpetuation) provides little alternative to seeing variation from the

dominant value structure as individual deviance; or it compels the analyst to brand variant forms as anything but

culture; for example, as a temporary distortion of "true"

(pure?) culture, a distortion which almost by definition must

disappear in time (embourgeoisement) . A similar explanation

is to explain cultural variation by a lack of culture, as

cultural deprivation. The anthropological approach to class-

related cultural difference can be shown to have class bias

rooted deeply in its prevailing theory. Similarly, the

emphasis on coherence and functional totality can be shown 37 to be little more that the theoretical apotheosis of the nation state : The national character approach came about as, at least in part, the working out of the dialectic of a particular problématique. which for simplicity I call

"enculturation.

In order for anthropology to provide a sufficient explanation of the existence of class-related cultural difference, it will be necessary to develop a problématique— a theory of cultural perpetuation— which is an alternative to the enculturationist problématique. Educational anthropology would take on a major, rather than peripheral, role in developing such an alternative problématique. This new problématique must provide for the systematic incorporation of the effects of "the crucial structural characteristics of the stratified social system" into the cultural realm, at the same time as allowing scope for the "creative" aspects of culture to which the less reactionary culture of poverty theorists have drawn attention.

The Alternative Problématique : Reproduction

The research on which this dissertation is based was conceived within such an alternative problématique. This research was designed to explore a "reproductionist" approach to the problem of cultural perpetuation, a clear and distinct alternative to the dominant enculturationist approach. This approach to the problem of cultural perpetuation stresses the

fact that any cultural system is subject to different and 38 often contradictory forces which shape the manner and form in which the system is actually perpetuated. In all cultures, such forces include ecological factors, population, and dialectics internal to the cultural system. In state-level or class societies--that is, societies in which a surplus is produced by one group and expropriated for use by another— the existence of permanent social differentiation and permanent antagonism complicates the process of cultural reproduction in a number of ways. These include the simultaneous development of mechanisms for legitimating the position of the dominant group as well as forms for protecting the position of the subordinate. In all societies, the process of reproduction can be conceptually split into multiple processes: on the one hand, social reproduction, or the provisioning of the material needs of the whole social formation, and on the other, cultural reproduction, or the recapitulation of existing cultural structures and the development of new ones to meet the changing conditions of social reproduction (Bourdieu 1973).

In class societies, this split between social reproduction and cultural reproduction becomes antagonistic, as the different groups struggle to reproduce their cultures in ways which improve their control over social reproduction.

At a theoretical level, a reproductionist approach to the problem of cultural perpetuation has significant advantages over the enculturationist problématique. In the first place, it makes the problem of cultural perpetuation a contingency. 39

In effect, the enculturationist position asstunes the perpetua­

tion of the culture as a system of values-, the task of educa­

tional anthropology becomes the ideological one of "discovering” what has been assumed. The reproductionist approach does not

assume cultural reproduction; instead, it presumes the

existence of a number of forces with the potential to disrupt perpetuation. Secondly, the reproductionist problématique

integrates multiple articulations between cultural forms and

other dynamic systems, particularly the "crucial structural

characteristics of the stratified social system," rather than

treating these as exogenous variables. Third, it takes

cognizance of the impact of culture on social reproduction,

allowing both for a creative response of culture in developing new forms to meet changed conditions and for the loss of

control over social reproduction— either by the complete

failure of cultural reproduction, or the failure of culture

to be reproduced in a manner which adequately meets the

changing conditions of social reproduction.

Although use of the term "reproduction" has become

more common in the anthropology of recent years, there are few

examples of it being used in a manner similar to the way it

is used above. The absence of a focus on reproduction in

anthropology and the concomitant dominance of enculturationist

approaches is part and parcel of the anti-Marxism which has

characterized American anthropology since the first critiques

of Morgan. Thus, the elements of a theory of cultural 40 reproduction have developed almost completely within Marxist and political economic theory. These started initially with two elements of Marx's Capital ; first, the identification of capitalist accumulation as the dynamic element driving the reproduction of the capitalist social formation ; and second, the use by Marx of various reproductive schema, or models of economic systems, to handle the economic problem of turnover.

These schemes allowed Marx to distinguish between a) simple reproduction, or the exact replication of the economic system through operations which,at the end of the turnover period, leave outputs exactly equal to the original inputs, and b) expanded reproduction, or a system in which the outputs are greater than the inputs, leading to a consequent expansion of the economic system. Expanded reproduction is related to capital accumulation, and the fundamental dynamic property of the capitalist economy is in this manner incorporated into the theoretical schema.

Although Marx himself was aware of intimate connections between the kinds of political economic forces he focuses on in Capital and the variety of human action which anthropologists refer to with the term culture, Marxism as a theoretical system has in general paid little attention to these connections.

Instead, it has been largely dominated by an attempt to analyze political economic developments abstracted from the cultural context. When cultural data have been considered, it has been done largely from the point of view of establishing how culture contributes to the continued domination of the hegemonic 41 class--that is, the class which is dominant in controlling social reproduction. This tendency provides some justification for Sahlins' critique of Marxist approaches to culture (1976).

In essence, the failure of Marxist theory to deal adequately with culture comes from a failure to distinguish social and cultural reproduction and the consequent failure to recognize that cultural reproduction can be either "simple" or

"expanded." In order to demonstrate the specificity of the

Marxist failure to apprehend theoretically the whole reproduc­ tionist problématique, I shall examine aspects of the work of several Marxists who have made systematic attempts to deal with culture : Gramsci, Althusser, and Bourdieu.

An early 20th Century Italian Marxist, Gramsci was personally very interested in cultural processes, devoting much of his intellectual energy to problems of education, study, and the development of social movements through agitation and propaganda. In Prison Notebooks Gramsci argued that the ability of the ruling class to maintain its position was dependent upon its control of both the state and civil

society:

What we can do...is to fix two major superstructural 'levels': one that can be called 'civil society,' that is, the ensemble of organisms commonly called 'private' and that of 'political society' or 'the State.' These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of 'hegemony' which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand that of 'direct domination' or command exercised through the State and 'juridical' government (1971:12). 42

While Gramsci identifies two aspects of social life in

advanced capitalist societies where ruling class domination

is doubtless of great importance to insuring continued class

rule, he identifies them in a way which characterizes them more as mere adjuncts of class rule rather than loci of class

struggle. The reproductionist approach outlined above would

stress the contingency of the struggle for cultural reproduction which takes place in civil society and the state, while at the

same time recognizing the general dominance of the ruling class

in these areas--dominance, but not determination (Symanski :1978) .

This one-sided development is taken further in the

recent work of French Marxists, notably Althusser and Bourdieu.

In his article discussing "Ideology and Ideological State

Apparatuses" (1972), Althusser describes a number of cultural

forms exclusively in terms of their contribution to bourgeois

hegemony. The work of , a French Marxist who

has traveled back and forth between anthropology and sociology,

is of particular importance to the development of concern with a reproductionist problématique. Bourdieu makes the

distinction between cultural and social reproduction in a

1973 paper, but he again focuses exclusively on the hegemony

perpetuation role of educational institutions. The same

process is the focus of his longer book Reproduction (1977).

While in general I agree with the argument that the

bourgeoisie is the dominant aspect of the contradiction

between the bourgeoisie and the working class in the area of

culture, I feel that the argument in the works referred to 43 above is not dialectical in that it fails to analyze the subordinate aspect as well as the dominant ones. Marx was certainly aware of the importance of cultural practice, as, for example, in his references to workers "throwing off their chains" and being the "gravediggers" of the capitalist system.

Nonetheless, there is a tendency in the Marxist literature to concentrate on the "underlying" political economic questions and to split off all such questions of cultural practice to be treated separately as matters of "consciousness." This tendency leads to the posing of basically false questions, like whether revolution will more likely come by changes in consciousness or changes in the political economy, rather than concrete analysis of the dialectical interactions of reproduction.

A properly dialectical understanding of the question of consciousness is of course of great concern to any study of the relationship of class and culture. Avineri (1968) stresses that in Marx human consciousness is not merely a reflection of an externally existing material reality; rather, human experience is a consequence of purposive, particularly productive activity carried out in a pre-existing sub-stratum.

Consciousness both derives from and shapes this activity, and thus has a dual character:

...(T)he distinction between 'material base' and 'superstructure' is not a distinction between 'matter' and 'spirit' ...but between conscious human activity, aimed at the creation and preservation of the conditions of human life, and human consciousness, which furnishes reasons, rationalizations, and modes of legitimization and moral justification for the specific forms that activity takes (p. 76). 44

Marx makes it quite clear that this "conscious human activity" is not necessarily "in phase" with "human consciousness":

The social structure and the State are continually evolving out of the life-processes of definite individuals, but of individuals, not as they appear in their own or other people's imagination, but as they really are, i.e., as they operate, produce materially (wie sie wirklich Sind, d. h. , wie sie Wirken) (AvTïïerl, r95Fi"3ïï:37y;------

In Avineri's reading, the material base is penetrated by

"conscious human activity," but this is not the same as "human consciousness."

In the tradition of Marxism, a proper understanding of the relationship of these two aspects of consciousness is to be based on a recognition of the fact that this relationship is mediated by the class dynamics of society. For Marx, the sociocultural process of primary concern was that by which a class went from being a class "in-itself" to a class "for- itself," that is, a class conscious of its place in society and struggling to serve its interest. One discovers the extent to which a particular class is one or the other by studying its performance in history; that is, the extent to which it controls social reproduction to serve its interest, the extent to which it is "class conscious."

The relationship between class consciousness and individual consciousness is close, but they are not the same thing. A classes consciousness is manifest in its practice, or the extent to which this practice is directed by knowledge of its material condition and the mechanisms to control social 45 reproduction available to it. An individual may be class

conscious as well, but the extent to which this is true

depends more on how he or she acts (wie sie wirken) than on what he or she has to say about what class they belong to.

Of course, in many circumstances, what individuals say may be an important clue to what they do, but this relationship is

to be discovered, not assumed to be isomorphic. Although

survey data can be used in discussing questions of class consciousness (see Mann 1973 and Syzmanski 1978), this must be done carefully.

The major point to be made about class consciousness, however, is its role in history and therefore the important articulation between classes and political economy, between

"conscious human activity" and history. The tendency of

Marxist studies of culture to reduce cultural practice to a

form of simple reproduction--that is, the simple replication

of the existing forms of hegemony— leads to a structural

similarity between the Marxist and the enculturationist positions

The inability of the enculturationist position to explain class- related cultural differences is paralleled by an inability of

Marxist positions to explain social revolution. When

described concretely (as in Trotsky's description of the

Russian Revolution), the interpenetration of superstructural

and infrastructural causes is made clear, but in the political q economic writing, this interpenetration is largely ignored. Summary

The purpose of this chapter has been to explore various

theoretical approaches to a dominant finding of anthropologi­

cal study of complex societies, the correlation of class and

cultural difference. The failures of anthropological theory

to deal with this finding have been traced to fundamental

structural and conceptual flaws in the dominant model of

culture, enculturation. An alternative problematique, reproduction, has been projected. The development of this problématique within Marxism has been sketched, mostly to highlight the relatively non-dialectical manner in which the

problématique has been explored. The research project on which this dissertation is based was developed to test the

idea that, unlike the enculturationist problématique, the

difficulties with the reproductionist technique are not

structural but implementational; that is, that an adequate model for explaining class-related cultural differences can be

developed within reproduction, although this has not yet been

done. Were such a model developed, it would have beneficial

effects both for the anthropology of complex societies and

for the ability of socialist revolutionaries to theorize their

practice.

46 NOTES 1 The proper conceptualization of "class" is a live issue within anthropology. Marxist anthropologists, in particular Terray (1972, 1973), stress the importance of developing an adequate concept of class. While in general I feel these problems are important, the approach of this dissertation is to explore the question of culture in the main. Thus, the discussion here will focus largely on contemporary. Western societies where "class" is a generally accepted descriptive term and will not attempt to formulate a rigorous concept of class. 2 There are many parallels between the anthropological perspectives to be described below and sociological perspectives on the same issues. The decision to work within the anthro­ pological tradition is more for simplicity and because of my greater familiarity with it than for any theoretical reason. q The following chapter argues that there is much reason to doubt its usefulness ; perhaps the best study testing the thesis is Goldthorpe, et. (1967).

^In my opinion, this is like describing the relation­ ship between the carnivore and his prey as one of symbiosis.

^Since my first extensive experience as a fieldworker came on the project on which this book is based, I came to confront many of these problems for the first time through it.

^Schneider (1968) argues: "...(T)he cultural level of observation can be distinguished from all others; ... cultural units and constructs can be described independently of all other levels of observation....In the most general terms, then, the problem I have posed is that of describing and treating culture as an independent system and of analyzing it in its own terms; that is, as a coherent system of symbols and meanings " (p. 8), For Schneider, such symbols and meanings (culture) are to be distinguished from actual, observable patterns of behavior, and culture is to be described independ­ ently, in its own terms.

^Another new term, "acculturation" was coined to refer to the process whereby grownups learn a new culture or value system, but only in the special context of cultural "contact" which is new.

Q I am conscious of chosing a term to characterize a major theoretical school in American anthropology by one of its more obscure aspects. This is done deliberately to focus attention of the crucial role such perfunctory and only semi­ conscious theoretical elements play in the theory. An

47 48

(Footnote #8 cont'd) alternative might have been to use the label "theory of the ethnographic present," referring to the literary style of much American anthropology. This is a style of writing which creates the impression of the "timelessness" of any particular cultural system; "timelessness" is a concomitant of any theory which sees cultural perpetuation as largely a process of having the older generation teach the younger. That the literary "mode of the ethnographic present" still is dominant in anthropology is evident in a monograph like Hoebels' on The Cheyenhes, (1960) which creates this sense of timelessness, even in the face of work like that of Eggan (1966) and the contributors to Leacock and Lurie (1971), works which document the massive cultural changes which have taken place historically among Native American groups. 9 In my opinion, this is the fundamental problem with Braverman's otherwise extraordinary (1974) book. CHAPTER TWO

AN EXPLORATION OF THE REPRODUCTIONIST

PROBLEMATIQUE THROUGH A STUDY OF

BRITISH WORKING CLASS CULTURE

In the previous chapter, it was argued that a dialectical development of the reproductionist problématique must provide theoretical space for all relevant socio-cultural processes, not just some of them. Implicit in the argument was the notion that, if one is to provide an adequate explana­ tion for the existence of class-related cultural differences, attention must be paid to the mechanisms developed by subordinate classes and other groups to control social reproduction to serve their interests, or at least to ameliorate the effects of control by the dominant group. Research based on such a notion would work with a concept of culture very different from both the idealist enculturationist and the materialist reductionist schools of American anthropology; it would stress, on the one hand, the articulation between cultural practice and material forces, while on the other it would be open to a creative response to and even control of the material forces through cultural practice. Equally important, such research would involve the concrete apprehension of such cultural practice; that is, the study of cultural practice in an

49 50

integrative and wholistic rather than selective manner, so

that one would be in a position to identify the real effects of such cultural practice.

The tradition of field study in anthropology provides

something of a model for the investigation of elusive cultural practice like that of subordinate cultures from the point of view of reproduction. As Valentine argues, however, the

field tradition of anthropology is only with difficulty

transferred out of the relatively closed communities in which

it was first developed. Valentine points out how the typical way in which field study has been adjusted to the conditions

of complex societies has been to restrict the scope of study

to a particular aspect of the society, such as family, kinship,

church, entrepreneurship, etc. While maintaining the intimacy

of the field style, such approaches have the drawback of making it much more difficult to maintain a wholistic perspec­

tive; in fact, the student of the anthropological study of

complex societies is faced with an ever-increasing number of micro-studies with no obvious theoretical relevance to each

other. Yet the penalties of failure to restrict scope are

equally severe if one is, unlike the national character

approach, to avoid theoretical undoing in the face of the

sheer complexity of dealing with the large nation state as the

focus of study.

The best insurance against the irrelevance of too

narrow a focus or the superficiality of too broad a focus

is to follow closely the theoretical parameters which initially . 51 guided selection of theoretical perspective. In terms of the investigation of subordinate cultures within the reproductionist problématique, this implies selection of a field problem where the effects which one wishes to study exist in a highly developed form. In the history of complex society, a number of events have taken place in which subordinate groups have organized grave threats against the dominant group ; on occasion, these threats have been carried out in the form of social revolutions. Slave rebellions, bourgeois revolutions, socialist revolutions, and national liberation struggles are all examples. A field study focusing upon such forms of cultural action would be particularly enhanced if the group involved was highly conscious of its cultural practice. While, as Gough has argued, national liberation struggles are of great theoretical interest for a variety of reasons, the conditions of a war of liberation are in general not conducive to the kind of self-conscious and self-critical reflection which is a useful part of intensive field study.

Because of considerations like these, a focus on

British working class culture was chosen. The working class in Britain was both the first to emerge in industrial form; it also has the longest continuous history of developing class­ conscious organizations and the cultivation of individual working class consciousness. Moreover, it is the focus of high degree of self-consciousness with regard to cultural practice; for at least 20 years, "working class culture" has been a major topic of interest in Britain. These conditions should provide a good 52 "best case" for the study of subordinate culture within a reproductionist problématique.

British Studies of Working Class Culture

In fact, the contemporary working class movement in

Britain has raised the nature of working class culture as an important theoretical problem. It is an important anthropolo­ gical premise, identified with the "emic" approach, that one must thoroughly understand how the object of study is concep­ tualized by those in the culture which is to be the focus of study.

Though concern with working class culture has been part of the working class movement at various times in its history,^ the range of contemporary concern with working class culture is largely associated with the work of four individuals: E.P.

Thompson, in his study of working class history; Raymond

Williams in his literary and other "artistic" studies; Richard

Hoggart for his study of changing working class patterns of life; and the plays of John Osborne, one of the "angry young men." These four are exemplars of the kind of intellectual work which make comments like the following by Asa Briggs a commonplace in British academic circles :

In examining the expansion (of labour activity) we have to explore adventurously the contours of working class culture and its relationship to the changing social situation and the changing culture of the middle class (1971:11).

No one has contributed more to this adventurous exploration and the recognition of its importance than E.P. Thompson, most 53 notably in his justly-famous, The Making of the English Working

Class (1963). At the beginning of his study, he makes clear his intent to demonstrate the historically-close relationship between productive relations, class consciousness, and culture :

The class experience is largely determined by the productive relations into which men are bom--or enter voluntarily. Class-consciousness is the way in which these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms (pp. 9-10).

This massive work is a study in the creation of a class, and

throughout it he stresses how the nature of working class culture was shaped both by the changes in production imposed by the new capitalist order in the late 18th and early 19th

Centuries and by the responses of working people cast into

the new relations of production. This latter aspect of the contradition of cultural reproduction is most evident in his

last chapter on class consciousness :

...(A)t the end of (the 1820's)...it is possible to speak in a new way of the working people's consciousness of their interests and of their predicament as a class. There is a sense in which we may describe popular Radicalism in these years as an intellectual culture. The articulate consciousness of the self-taught was above all a political consciousness...(W)orking men formed a picture of the organization of society, out of their own experience and with the help of their hard-won and erratic education, which was above all a political picture (pp. 711-12).

While he perhaps overstresses the cognitive aspects of culture,

Thompson has placed the interpretation of working class culture

at the center of working class debate. He does this particularly

by stressing how historically the working class "owes as much

to agency as conditioning" and how "It was present at its own 54 making" (Introduction). He has argued the importance of cultural variables in other contexts as well (1974). He argues, for example, that while 18th Century patrician society exercised over plebian culture, this did not preclude a "remarkable dissociation between the polite and plebian cultures" and "a creative, culture-forming process from below " (1974:392-3).

Raymond Williams has made a contribution to the study of contemporary working class culture, particularly its linguistic and literary aspects, comparable to Thompson's historical contribution. Williams was a working class lad from

Wales who himself experienced the process of self-education referred to by Thompson. In his central work. Culture and

Society (1966), Williams carries out an extended etymolgical study of five "key words"--industry, democracy, class, art, and culture. This examination sets the stage for his discussion of working class culture, which he identifies as a "key issue of our time, one in which there is a considerable element of misunderstanding " (p. 309). Negatively, he argues that one can neither consider "the bulk of the material produced by the new means of communication" (TV, etc., p. 319) nor "the small amount of proletarian writing and art" as constituting working class culture, although the latter is a valuable dissident element. During his criticism of the uses of the notion

"bourgeois culture," Williams stresses the autonomy of the working class:

It is argued, for instance, that the working class is becoming 'bourgeois' because it is dressing like 55 the middle class, living in semi-detached houses, acquiring cars and washing machines and television sets. But it is not 'bourgeois' to possess objects of utility, nor to enjoy a high material standard of living. The working class does not become bourgeois by owning the new products...(p. 324) .

In this manner, Williams deals with the arguments of those who equate possession of certain material objects with the cultural process of embourgeoisement. But if this isn't culture, then what is it?

If we think of culture...in terms of a body of intellectual and imaginative work, we can see that with the extension of education, the distribution of this culture is becoming more even...Yet a culture is not only a body of intellectual and imaginative work; it is also and essentially a whole way of life. The basis of a distinction between bourgeois and working-class culture is...between alternative ideas of the nature of social relationship. 'Bourgeois' is a significant term because it marks that version of social relationship which we usually call individualism; that is to say, an idea of society as a neutral area within which each individual is free to pursue his own development and his own advantage as a natural right...... (T)he individualist idea can be sharply contrasted with the idea that we properly associate with the working class : an idea which, whether it is called communism, socialism, or cooperation, regards society neither as neutral nor as protective, but as the positive means for all kinds of development. We mean... that this is the essential idea embodied in the organizations and institutions which (the) class creates : The working-class movement as a tendency, rather than all working-class people as individuals.

We may now see what is properly meant by 'working'^ class culture;' It is not Proletarian art, or council houses , or a particular use of languages ; it is, rather, the basic collective idea, and the institutions, manners, habits of thought, and intensions which proceed from this...Working class culture...is primarily social (in that it has created institutions) rather than individual. When it is considered in context, it can be seen as a very remarkable creative achievement (pp. 325-27). 56

In this section, Williams is trying to free definitions of working-class culture from, on the one hand, a narrowness which limits it to "" (i.e., culture is intellectual

and imaginative work only), and on the other, the consensus,

functionalist implications of definitions which largely equate working class culture with national culture. The discussion

provided above is certainly consonant with the kind of concept 2 of culture demanded by the reproductionist problématique.

Culture and Society was originally published in 1958,

also the date of publication of a work of equal importance to working class culture, Richard Hoggarts The Uses of Literacy,

as well as the first production of John Osborne's play, "Look

Back in Anger." These three events mark a distinctive "coming

out" or surfacing of working class culture, an event which was

particularly important for scores of young working class men

and women. These were people who had found themselves culturally

lost in the unfamiliar circumstances of universities and other

middle class institutions to which, by and large, working

class people had only recently been admitted. In 1958, their

private problems and anxieties became public and justified;

such an event is yet to take place for working class people in

the United States.

Hoggart's book is an attempt to explore the effects of

modern mass publications on the attitudes of working class

people; as such, it is polemical in style. His polemic leads

him quite consciously to present a picture of working class

life in the past which stresses some aspects and obscures others. 57

In his desire to remedy middle class distortions of working class culture, which he traces to the twin evils of brief encounters with exceptional workers at university summer schools or the romanticism of "middle class Marxism," Hoggart chooses to concentrate on certain aspects of working class life which he characterizes as "grass roots" or "day to day." These are the kinds of lay terms which anthropologists often choose to characterize the anthropological approach, but in my opinion,

Hoggart's selection of aspects is problematic, if not a down­ right distortion. He explains his selection:

It follows that I shall give less attention to, for example, the purposive, the political, the pious, and the self-improving minorities in the working-classes. This is not because I underrate their value, but because the appeals made by the mass publicists are not primarily to their kinds of mind. ...Thus certain strains often found among the majority--the self-respecting, the thrifty, for instance— though they are given a place, do not receive the same weight of attention as some others, such as the tolerant, or that which insists on the need to have a good time while one can (pp. 22-3).

There are two primary problems with the picture of working class life which Hoggart subsequently paints. The more important one is the fact that the picture is largely abstracted from those aspects of working class life which Williams argues are basic to working class culture (organizational work in trade unions or political groups, for example). The other problem is that the focus is on a certain "kind of mind," not one chosen because it is typical or in some way crucial, but because it is the kind of mind conceptualized by the mass media publicists whose impact he is concerned to measure. These two analytic decisions on his part result in a picture of working 58 class life which, while evocative and accurate in detail, is of limited usefulness to the study of class cultural reproduc­ tion. By defining the problem of working class culture as a problem of attitudes and kinds of minds, he shares the limits of the enculturationist problématique. It is consequently no surprise that he is among those who are convinced that Britain is moving "towards a culturally 'classless* society " (p. 15).

In a new television production of Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" which was aired during the field period, the play struck me as both dated and incredibly sexist. According to my informants, however, in its time the play reverberated closely with deep feelings of hostility which they had developed as a consequence of middle class obliviousness to their class origins and their feelings about the distinctiveness of their class.

The "anger" of the "angry young men" was in fact frequently a manifestation of resentment against such middle class blindness, particularly those situations in which the "transplanted" working class individual was expected to cheerfully connive at his or her own "declassing." Osborne's play is only the first of many in which workers and things working class are "center stage, " and a direct literary line is traceable from him through the work of Haskell Wexler and Trevor Griffiths to the political working class theater discussed in Chapter Sixteen.

Once the problem of working class culture had been broached by these four, it was taken up by numerous other intellectuals and is today a frequently-used symbol in the

struggle for control over social reproduction taking place in 59

Britain. Two or three other intellectuals who have dealt with the problem of working class culture deserve additional attention. Michael Barrett Brown, an activist in the educational aspect of the working class movement, has used the concept of

"the political economy of labour" in From Labourism to

Socialism (1972). The frontpiece of the book includes a quotation from Marx where this notion is used. Marx describes the "two great facts" of the pre-1864 working class struggles of Britain— the Ten Hours' Bill and thé Cooperative Movement— as "... the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class. " (p. 4). Barratt Brown goes on to use this concept to describe the development of a working class power base or turf within the confines of capitalist society.

He argues that in the process of struggle for a political economy of the working class, working people begin to make their own society, which is "what socialism is all about "

(p. 12), In his following comments upon the social services in Britain, the"political economy of labour"is conceptualized as the mechanisms available to the working class to bend the workings of the social system (at least partially) to their own interest :

The social services in Britain, despite all their weaknesses, are a tribute to the social demands of the Labour Movement. Their defense and extension remain the hallmark of Labour Party policies (however much Labour Governments may trim), which distinguishes Labour and Conservative on quite patent class lines (p. 151). 60

The concept is an integral part of Barratt Brown's vision of the political future:

What we may expect in the 1970's is a long series of struggles energised both by revolutionary and counter­ revolutionary potential, ranging far beyond the confines of the British nation state, in which the political economy of labour, in both rich and poor states, builds and reinforces its own unassailable base, with inter­ national links, over against the political economy of international capital (p. 22).

Unfortunately, Barratt Brown does not develop his concept in a systematic theoretical way, even though it is used in the book's sub-'andsection titles. He does not, for example, indicate a mechanism for distinguishing between the 'political economy of labour' or the political economy of capitalism; nor does he allow for the fact that an organization which appears to be serving one interest at one time can come to serve the other at another, or even at the same time. Nonetheless, his emphasis upon the set of institutional structures which serve the working class interest is very important, and these structures must be recognized for their role in contributing to the working

Class' ability to control social reproduction, whatever their relationship to the state. Perhaps the most controversial writer on British working

class culture is Basil Bernstein. The focus of his concern has largely been the impact of working class culture on the

educational experience of working class children. His primary theoretical effort has been the introduction of à distinction between "restricted" and "elaborated" linguistic codes as two fundamental types of cognitive structures. The first of these 61 he associates with working class culture, and the second with middle class. At a number of points, Bernstein's perspective articulates with that of Bourdieu, as, for example, his argument that schooling is biased against working class children since it is based on elaborated codes.

According to educationist Harold Rosen, "Bernstein's theories have permeated contemporary educational thinking"

(1972:2) in Britain. His accomplishments within linguistics and education should not be underestimated. Sinha, in a 1977 article, summarizes them as follows :

In the first place, Bernstein was the first researcher who posited a difference not in the formal (grammatical, lexical, etc.) linguistic resources of different sub­ cultures...but in the typical patterns of deployment of these resources in social interaction, and thus pioneered the shift in focus of sociolinguistic research from langue to parole... In the second place, Bernstein has drawn attention to the socio-cognitive substrate of linguistic interaction in its context, and the manner in which this may be related to specific elements of sub-cultural experience, values, and organization... (T)he present concern in child language development studies to explore context owes a great deal to Bernstein's work (pp. 84-5).

In my opinion, Bernstein is at his best when critiquing the outcome of forms of educational practice which are supposedly blind to the generation of class differences in society, as in his articles on compensatory education (1970) or his recent paper on the effects of innovative informal educational techniques in primary education (1975).

It would appear that Bernstein's work is an attempt to confront the problem of cultural differences within a reproduc­ tionist problématique. He sees himself as studying, "the 62

institutionalization of communication both in its boundaries

and its openings"; (1971:xiii) or "how sociolinguistic codes

are generalized, reproduced, and changed as a result of macro

(institutional) features of the society" (p. 12). Even more

explicitly, he wants to study "the relation between modes of

cognitive expression in classes (especially the working class)"

(p. 24).

Critics of Bernstein are legion. The most devastating,

such as Labov (1970), attack Bernstein through the argument

that non-standard forms of language are just as useful for

communicative purposes as standard forms ; in this way, the notion of "restricted" codes is revealed as class-biased.

Sinha (1977) and Rosen (1972) both point out how a simplistic

concept of class as occupation leads to a variety of methodo­

logical difficulties. Sinha argues that the most fundamental

problem is that Bernstein has assumed without adequate evidence

that a whole variety of components of linguistic "code" can

be assumed to co-vary in a simple fashion, and that this

assumption is what has led many British educationists to

continue exactly the same kinds of stereotyping of working

class children which the research purports to be opposing.

In essence, it appears to me that while Bernstein has

identified certain elements of autonomy in working class

culture, his theory has significant flaws. It combines aspects

of both the reproductionist and the enculturationist pfbblem=

atique, as for example the emphasis on macro features and the

"class as occupation" notion; in this, it is a telling 63 demonstration of the fundamental compatibility of the "radical" reproductionism of Gramsci, Althusser, and Bourdieu with the standard enculturationist approach. By failing to focus on the source of the distinctiveness in working class language, this distinctiveness is presented through middle class percep­ tions and ultimately is incorporated into the structure of domination.

The purposes of this discussion of British approaches to the study of working class culture have been a) to demonstrate the importance of the problem to intellectuals in Britain and b) to give some sense of both the power of the theories hereto­ fore developed, c) their diversity, and d) their limitations.

The six chosen for extended discussion are only a few of many who could have been discussed; in general, their work is illustrative of the possibilities, as well as the difficulties, q of working outside of the enculturationist problématique. The following conclusions about a theory of working class culture can be drawn from this consideration. First, working class culture is not ;

1. limited only to the consciously proletarian, nor does it include every aspect of working class life;

2. limited to intellectual and imaginative activity alone;

3. limited to "grass-roots" or "day-to-day" activity;

4. to be perceived through middle class values;

5. simple.

Second, any adequate model of working class culture must include:

1. the relationship of culture to productive activity;

2. the relationship to consciousness; 64 3. its political character;

4. its character as a fundamentally social relationship;

5. the importance in it of collective ideas, institutions, manners, habits of thought, and intentions j

6. its existence as a distinctive domain in society;

7. the close relationship of the culture to those institutions in society which provide the class with a power base within a dominant social order;

8. the role of language, education, cognition, and communication;

9. the need to investigate it in a broad social context;

10. its complexity.

A Reproductionist Concept of Culture Applied to the Working Class_____

Much more could be written about the various concept

tùalizations of working class culture extent in relevant

British political and scholarly contexts; the above discussion was aimed primarily at documenting the central role of the

concept and demonstrating the diverse perspectives of some of

its major users. The discussion provides both justification

and background for an empirical, field study-derived model of working class culture; a model which, moreover, must be developed within the previously discussed reproductionist problématique.

Before such a model can be developed, however, it is necessary to have a concept of culture which can be used in the

field and which contains within it the essence of the critique

of mainstream definitions described in Chapter One. Such an

operational definition must be sufficiently flexible to include within its purview the kinds of cultural practice identified by 65 the writers just discussed; therefore, it must avoid the tendency to view cultural practices through dominant cultural forms.

Similarly, it must allow for the likelihood of conflict and contradiction, the semi-complete and the incoherent, rather than assuming a priori the logicality and coherence of each cultural system. It must stress the interrelatedness of

symboling, action, and social relationships, rather than attempting to maintain radical disjunctions among these. Broad enough to capture the whole range of states of cultural hegemony—

from clear dominance to intense struggle to clear subordination--

it must find its order in terms of the groups of people creating

it rather than in terms of any preordained characteristics.

In the field research on which this dissertation was based, the following operational definition of culture was used: A culture is the set of forms of social relations,

organizations, action, and symboling which functions to or whose intended purpose is to control the process of social

reproduction in a manner which serves the interest of any

particular group or category of people.

The advantages of such a concept for consideration of

the problem of the relationship between culture and class are many. The definition can be applied to any group or category

(women. Blacks, capitalists. New Yorkers) which either strives

to control social reproduction in its own interest or whose

interest is served by specific forms of cultural practice.^

For this reason, it is equally applicable to any identifiable

group or category, however much hegemony it exercises over 66 economic, political, or religious activity. Like ecological approaches, it puts the primary focus of attention on control and reproduction— on cultural process--while avoiding any presumption of priority among the forms of social relations, organization, action, or symboling— thus eliminating any tendency toward reductionism.

Such a definitional approach is particularly appropriate to working class culture, from the reactions of the earliest factory "hands," through the political movements of the 19th

Century and the economic developments of shop stewards' committees and workers' participation in the 20th. The approach is equally useable by those who, like the Gaitskillites of the post-World War Two Labour Party, would argue that the aims of the working class have been achieved within the capital­ ist system in a kind of co-hegemony of capitalist and socialist systems of control over social reproduction; and by those who, like myself, feel that working class culture is clearly still subordinate.

In sum, like any good operational definition, it orients us toward the particular empirical phenomena which our problem identifies as most crucial without prejudging the nature of those phenomena. A particular form of symboling may be intended as an important instrument of working class service, whereas at the same time it may in fact serve the class interest badly. Conversely, another form may be intended to inhibit

class consciousness, yet in practice it makes a valuable con­

tribution to its formation. This definition included both 67 c kinds of phenomena. The ultimate impact of any particular form is determined to a significant extent by the context of all of the things which go to make up working class culture.

It is the identification of a useful way to approach this broad context to which we now turn. NOTES

^Particularly on the part of the Hammonds; see McDougall (1975). In the United States, concern with working class culture has developed more recently and tentatively; tangentially in Sweezy and Bettleheim (1971) and more directly in Aronowitz (1973). 2 Williams is certainly not without his critics. Green (1974) contends that Williams work (particularly the early parts) is distorted by an over-evaluation of the role of art and literature, the comments above notwithstanding. Maisels (1974) also takes Williams to task for defining culture so broadly that "it is a synonym for society after all," (p. 2) and offers instead the notion of working class culture as "the distinctive domain of the working class within society as a whole." Unfortunately, he doesn t offer any mechanism for distinguishing the working class domain from the rest of society. With the criticisms taken into account, Williams' approach clearly a) avoids the "coherence" imperative of the enculturationist definition and b) orients definitions of culture to material, social causation. 3 Many writers on working class culture stay within enculturation. One example is Jenny Klein, whose concept of "cognitive poverty" (1968:87) is as egregious an example of class bias as one could find among the more reactionary culture of poverty theories discussed in Chapter One.

^In this regard, the definition attempts to include cultural practice which is both purposive, instrumental, and often conscious with that which is adaptational, irrespective of whether it is consciously or unconsciously produced or reproduced.

^Once a satisfactory conceptualization of the culture of any particular group is in hand, one can confront the question, how well on the whole does the culture actually serve the interest of the group? To answer this question adequately, one would need to develop analytical models of the other cultural systems with which thé set in focus is in competition-- a set of models of the various mechanisms extent in the whole social formation for control of social reproduction. Once in hand, this more wholistic model would allow one to identify the particularly crucial weaknesses in the cultural set of the original group, if one so desired. As indicated in the introduction, such an overall analysis is beyond the scope of this dissertation,though certainly not in principle beyond the scope of anthropological science.

68 CHAPTER THREE

WHY A FOCUS ON WORKERS ' EDUCATION AS A WAY TO

STUDY WORKING CLASS CULTURE IN BRITAIN

The previous chapter explained why a focus on working class culture in Britain was chosen as a way of developing the reproductionist problématique, particularly in order to expand anthropology's capacity to deal with class-related cultural differences. In the best emic tradition, the variety of useful approaches to working class culture developed by the British themselves was explored, explored in a manner which documented both their diversity and some of their shortcomings. Based on this exploration, and the critique of enculturation and radical reproduction carried out in the first chapter, an alternative model of culture was developed at the conclusion of the chapter.

At various points in the discussion, it was argued that the diversity and shortcomings of existing approaches to working class culture justify further research.

This chapter returns to the question raised at the beginning of Chapter Two : how to design a field study of class cultural reproduction which is neither too broad nor too narrow.

That chapter approached the problem through developing a more precise and useful concept of culture, but other problems remain. The purpose of this chapter is to explain how it was decided to approach working class culture through workers' education.

69 70

To see why workers' education is a good way to approach working class culture, it is useful to consider again the

logical implications of a model of the cultural dynamics of

complex societies which stresses the existence of dominant and

subordinate cultures. Each of these two types of cultures face

particular problems in ensuring its own reproduction. For the

, there are problems of legitimation, problems

of supply, and most importantly^-problems which develop as a

consequence of the dialectical development of the mode of

exploitation on which the dominant culture is based. The

dominant culture has a number of tools to enhance its reproduc­

tion, among them its influence on the state and ideological

hegemony in civil society, as Gramsci argued.

The problems of reproduction facing a subordinate

culture are rather different and, as a consequence of its

subordination, it would appear that chances for successful

reproduction are less than for the dominant culture. In the

enculturationist problématique, the major factor in cultural

replication is held to be the normal activities of daily life, during which the younger persons are enculturated by the older

in a semi-or even unconscious manner.^ By the fact of its

subordination, however, a dominated culture is less able to

reproduce itself in this manner, except in certain restricted

areas (such as in the family or in community life) and even

there the effects of the cultural hegemony of the dominant

culture are likely to penetrate deeply. If a dominated culture

is to be reproduced, it must find some mechanisms other than 71

"daily life" to do this. It would appear that a common mechanism is conscious symboling about the position and interests of the dominated group, symboling which of course articulates with the forms of organization, action, and social relationships developed as well.

In sum, it is logical that conscious symboling about the position and interest of the subordinate group is a frequent, if not necessary part, of the reproduction of subordinate cultures. For this symboling to be an effective part of reproduction, it must be shared or collectivized. Thus, while it was argued above that an individual's articulation of his or her class position, class status, etc., was of less general interest than the class character of their actions, from the specific point of view of the reproduction of subordinate cultures, such individual symboling has rather greater signifi­ cance. One is particularly interested in the extent to which such class symboling is shared and the mechanisms for facilitating this sharing.

While the above is logically true within the theoretical context of the reproductionist problématique for any subordinate group, it is particularly relevant for the working class within capitalism. This is because, as Marx first observed, one of the most distinctive attributes of capitalism as a mode of production is its built-in tendency toward a high level of dynamism. The central role of accumulation in the capitalist mode of production has led to a situation where science is harnessed directly to productive activity. Consequently, the 72 individual capitalist is driven to reorganize production (in a manner commensurate with science on the one hand and the necessity to maintain labor discipline on the other) as rapidly as possible in order to survive. The accelerating rate of the transformation in the mode of production means an accelerating rate of change in the process of social reproduc­ tion which culture tries to control. It is important to emphasize that the transformations in the capitalist system consequent to the process of accumulation have effects on a much broader range of aspects of social life than , such as social relations of production, distribution, consump? tion, and on "superstructural" phenomena as well.

Thus, the problem of the reproduction of working class culture involves both those problems facing any subordinate culture and those problems consequent to the accelerated rate of change in the mode of production of capitalism. As the rate of such changes consequent to capitalist accumulation accelerates, the problem of reproduction is less one of replication and more one of development, less the problem of the way in which older mechanisms of reproduction are adapted to and co-opted by the dominant culture than that of how new mechanicisms are developed to meet new reproductive challenges.

From the point of view of the necessity of such "complex" or expanded reproduction, rather than simple or stereotypic reproduction, the symboling activity referred to above as part of the cultural reproductive process takes on special meaning. Indeed, reproductionist theory leads one to 73 hypothesize that individual and group symboling and conscious­ ness of the symboling are particularly important parts of the reproduction of working class culture, and the corollary hypothesis that reproduction is highly dependent upon symboling quality.

It must be emphasized that the statements made in the preceding paragraphs are logically derived from the reproduc­ tionist problématique ; they are derived in the first place from a particular theoretical perspective, and thus they are to be treated as hypotheses. The job of science is to investigate the extent to which such theories help us to understand the actual process of social reproduction. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to demonstrating the historical existence of a tradition of symboling activity by the working class movement in Britain. This tradition appears to be exactly the kind of symboling referred to above, symboling about the nature, position, and prospects of the class, symboling which appears to be related to developments and transformations in working class culture— in other words, to expanded working class cultural reproduction.

This■ • tradition is referred .... to in a number ... of ways, » ” but in the field it was most frequently termed "workers’ education."

The History of Workers' Education in Britain

There is significant evidence for an historically significant tradition of "workers' education" in Britain. It is nonetheless an interesting commentary on the nature of 74 subordinate cultural systems that this tradition is not the

focus of a single integrative study, despite the rather

extensive attention paid to a variety of other aspects of

working class culture. Generally, workers' education is not

perceived as a topic of specific study in itself. Rather, it

is treated as a small part of the more general adult education

movement (Peers 1960). Alternatively, a single institution may be chosen as the focus of study (Tylecote 1957 ; Stocks

1953), or workers' education may be treated as an undifferen­

tiated aspect of the labor movement.

The study of movements is particularly difficult; as

Briggs and Saville (1971) point out, it involves,

...turning from the relatively straightforward issues concerned with the defense or promotion of specific (if somewhat ill-defined) interests to the far more complex problems of associations, traditions, loyalties, and ideologies and the relationships between 'leaders,' 'militants^ and 'rank and file' (p. 3).

A shift in focus to deal primarily with the history of collec­

tive symbolic or educational activity would provide a way to

rationalize the study of movements. While such an historical

study is not the primary focus of this dissertation, the issue

must be partially dealt with here for at least two additional

reasons. In the first place, there is an emic justification:

varying interpretations of the history of workers' education

have a great deal to do with the way contemporary British

workers' educators approach a variety of crucial pedagogical

and political questions; indeed, one could have little hope of

understanding the contemporary debate over workers' education 75 without a strong sense of its history. The second reason is that the reproductionist problématique stresses the importance of the strong relationship between cultural reproduction and social reproduction, dialectical processes which shape and are shaped by each other. Historically, workers' education has shaped social reproduction, and in this way shaped contemporary workers' education. What follows is therefore a brief interpretive essay of the history of workers' education, carried out in the hopes that its errors and shortcomings will help stimulate adequate historical work.

1. The Levellers

It seems appropriate to date the beginning of workers' education with the 17th Century Levellers' Movement. For a time political allies of the Cromwellian Revolution, the

Levellers demanded a truly democratic restructuring of society embodying principles of political freedom, democracy, and equality. According to a member of the Oxford Industrial

Branch (See Chapter 14) of the Workers' Educational Association, the Levellers were "the first shop stewards" or rank and file advocates of the interests of the broad masses. This claim is supported by Benn, who argues that:

The rank and file within (Cromwell's) New Model Army spoke through Adjutants, Agents, or Agitators (hence the social odium attaching to that word in the British establishment to this day) and they wore the sea-green colours that are still associated with incorruptibility. They demanded and won— for a time— democratic control of the Armed Forces and secured equal representation on a Grand Council of the Army sharing decisions with the Generals and Colonels... They argued for universal state schools and hospitals to be provided at public expense... 76 The Levellers distilled their political philosophy by discussion out of their own experience, mixing theory and practice, thought and action.. .(1976 6-7) .

The Levellers can be seen to constitute an important part of

British political and "subordinate culture" history, and a

strong connection between them and the still small proletariat could probably be made as well. They were also perhaps the

first to use agitation to educate the broad masses to perceive a common oppositional interest, to symbol regarding the reproduction of working class culture :

The Levellers found spokesmen and campaigners in John Lilbum, Richard Overton, William Walwyn, Gerrad Winstanley, the 'True Leveller' or Digger, and others. These men were brilliant pamphleteers enjoy­ ing a short-lived freedom to print, publish, and circulate their views... They developed their own traditions of real discussion and vigourous petitioning and used them to formulate and advance their demands. These demands included the drafting,.of a major document called 'The Agreement of Oie People, ' which outlined a new and democratic constitution for Britain (Benn 1976:5-6).

Historian Christopher Hill substantiates these claims in the

following comments about one particular Leveller :

Winstanley's pamphlets were published in the vernacular, at the height of a great revolution, and they aimed at rousing the poorer classes to political action. (Oxford Industrial Branch 1976:1).

Ultimately, the Levellers refused to accompany Cromwell

in the suppression of Ireland and three of their leaders were

executed by their erstwhile allies in the Burford Church; their movement was decimated. As workers' educators, they laid a

pattern which of necessity has been well-trodden— using the

written and spoken word to develop collective consciousness; 77 combining education with political action ; developing and using skillfully new means of drawing attention to their ideas at the same time as they applied political pressure.^ Un­ fortunately, the pattern of their repression has also been repeated.

2. Chartism

The second crucial period of the history of workers' education in Britain begins with the Corresponding Societies

(Thompson 1963) founded at the time of the French Revolution and ends with the collapse of Chartism in the 1840's.^ Johnson

(1976, 1977) identifies this period with the development of conscious "counter education," which he feels is the most important of the indigenous educational traditions of the

English working class. Counter education is manifest in three ways : a) a critique of all forms of provided or philanthropic education; b) a projection of alternative sets of educational goals; and c) a vigorous and varied autochthonous educational practice. Johnson sees counter education developing out of a dilemma faced by working class radicals consequent to their general appreciation of knowledge^ on the one hand and their suspicion of the Mechanics Institutes, the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and other attempts at providing working class enlightenment by bourgeois benefactors, on the other. A Chartist circular on the Society claimed,

"Their determination is to stifle enquiry respecting the great principles which question their right to a larger share of

the national produce than those which the physical producers of

the wealth themselves enjoy " (Johnson 1976:20). 78

The radicals responded by developing their own educa­ tional forms,^ Emphasizing that the key feature of these attempts was their informality, Johnson describes their activities :

...(C)ommonly, radicals used the opportunities for learning which already existed, but developed them further or gave them a particular cast. Included here were all the educational resources of neighborhood and place of work: the family itself where literacy was already acquired and could be 'inherited'; the knowledgeable friend, relation or neighbor, the 'scholar' in the neighboring town or village, the work-place discussion, the extensive network of private schooling and not uncommonly the Sunday School, the most un-school-like of the new devices, often, especially in its connections with religious heterodoxy, outside the orbit of clerical or middle-class control. ... On top of this, the radicals improvised newer means : the groups convened to discuss the movements' classic texts; the facilities for public readings of the political press in pub, coffee-house or reading room; the temporary subversions or take-overs of mechanics institutes or even churches and above all the radical press itself, the key educational medium and most successful radical invention. In this way radicals helped to sustain and build up a network of educational resources indigenous to the class (p. 21).

Quite conscious of the importance of maintaining independent control of these counter institutions, working class educationists placed equal emphasis on defining an educational content to serve the class interest. In general, the goal was to provide knowledge which was both broad and practical. Given limited resources, however, the emphasis was usually placed on what Johnson refers to as "spearhead knowledge":

Certain understandings had a pressing immediacy to be grasped here and now: indispensable means of emancipa­ tion; preconditions for radical knowledge (p. 23). 79

Johnson summarizes the three general types of spearhead knowledge in the following way.

1) political knowledge--knowledge of the State and how it functions;

2) Owenite "social science," which included "a developed sense of the force of social institutions in the reproduction of the existing competitive social order";

3) the Labour Theory of Value, dealing with the everyday exploitation of working people.

Such spearhead knowledge "amounted to a range of theorized experience which did indeed transcend all that philanthropy could offer" to the working class (p. 23). It was complemented by instruction in knowledge directly related to production so that workers might, in Cobbett's phrase,

"know how to do as many useful things as possible." (p. 22)

For they believed that for working people to be able to control their own affairs, they needed to be able to control production, or as one cooperative paper put it.

Laborers must become practicalists, and must acquire knowledge to regulate their labour in a large and united scale before they will be able to enjoy the whole products of their labour (p. 23).

They also began to develop a modern theory of production which emphasized how capitalism distorts the very nature of working knowledge itself as a consequence of the separation of hand and brain.

Although his emphasis is on the counter institutions,

Johnson acknowledges the fact that working people did use the provided and philanthropic forms of education, even though these operated within a bourgeois "value free" ideology. Often 80 the history of such institutions was filled with much more conflict than Johnson lets on (See Kelly 1958 , Burns 1924 , and Tylcote 1957 ). For example, Birkbeck College, now part of the University of London, was originally student- governed, oriented consequently to the development of a theory of basic principles of knowledge which would unite all learning.

The history of the school is one of constant efforts to defend and transform this form of government and sense of mission.

An integrated history of both provided and counter­ institutions would probably indicate a rather fluid situation of conflict over content and form, at least until the collapse of Chartism. Even in periods of working class quiescence, g however, workers' education continued to develop in new forms.

3. Socialism

The next major stage in workers' education in England coincides roughly with the development of mass unionism and socialism, the period covered broadly in Brian Simon's

Education and the Labour Movement. 1870-1920 (1974), This was a period of renewed political and economic activity by the working class. Simon traces the resurgence of working class

educational activity to the new socialist groups (such as the

Social Democratic Federation, the Independent Labour Party, and the Socialist Labour Party) who, "embarked on a programme of propaganda and education which brought a new conception of

the potentials of living and new hope to the more advanced

sections of the working class " (p. 18). He goes on to a detailed examination of a broad range of independent working

class institutions with an educational function. These include: 81

1. working class clubs, similar in many ways to the corresponding societies of the 1790's, where workers met, debated, and were addressed by traveling lecturers;

2. continuing self-education, often assisted by the remnants of the Mechanics Institutes of past eras;

3. informal socialist tutors from the ranks of the new socialist societies;

4. weekend open-air meetings, organized and addressed by the socialists;

5. Secular Society and Cooperative Hall lectures and other activities ; 6. systematic study classes on politics and economics within the socialist societies;

7. circulating libraries of working class literature, such as the "book box'' of the Fabian Societies ;

8. socialist publications founded for the education of the new unionists, such as Robert Blatchford's Clarion ;

9. local trades' councils with educational functions;

10. social and cultural organizations and events; a broad range of these aimed at building socialist fellowship among youth, women, and cyclists, among others;

11. independent labour organizations and parties;

12. Labour Church and Socialist Sunday School movements, which combined Christian socialism with educational classes;

13. political struggles around educational demands, such as the demand for leisure, free speech, and freedom for a socialist press;

14. "art for the people and not a clique," fostered in craftmen's workshops like the ftuskin commune at Dore near Sheffield;

15. communication of theoretical work on the nature of education in socialist society, particularly stressing the integration of education and work.

The broad range and character of this kind of workers' education was summed up by the Sheffield socialist (and early 82 advocate of homophlle rights) Edward Carpenter, who claimed that the socialist movement

...has defined a dream and an ideal, that of the common life conjoined to the free individuality, which somewhere and somewheh must be realized, because it springs from and is the expression of the very root-nature of man (Simon 1974:58).

The wide-ranging activities of this socialist education movement provoked a major counter-offensive to "win the workers over to sensible ideas ;" that is, for church and the state.

This counter-offensive included the youth movement (YMCA and

YWCA, the Boy's Brigade and the Girl Guides, the Boy's Club), new workingmen's clubs organized under the auspices of the Working Men's Club and Institute Union, and the Adult School

Movement, much of the impetus for which came from Quaker entrepreneurs like the Cadburys and Rowntrees. The conscious, deliberate social aim of institutions like these is evident in the articulation of the goals of the Adult School Movement, where the teaching of reading and writing was to take place within a kind of moral climate oriented toward "the day when

Capital and Labour (would be) shaking hands with something of the love which thinketh no evil" (p. 77). Simon (perhaps a bit unfairly) characterizes the mission and settlement movements which developed at the same time as a "new Feudalism," in which students from the most elite public schools went into poor neighborhoods for a variety of uplift activities. Some of the contradictory consequences of these developments are captured in Simon's description of perhaps the most famous settlement house, Toynbee Hall: 83

"(It) provided a very wide variety of social and educational activities - a n actual 'bill of fare' for a single week...runs to nearly two pages and includes ten lectures, nine reading parties, two literary society meetings, thirty-five classes of various kinds, a concert, two 'parties' and other activities...(The settlement was) developed...as a centre of social and cultural activities of all kinds, including university extension lectures (the Duke of Devonshire took the chair at the inaugural meeting one year), and an enpurmous variety of societies. Among the openers of debates were such working-class leaders as Ben Tillett, Tom Mann, Herbert Burrows, and George Lansbury— (the director) was sympathetic to organized labour, often lending rooms for trade union meetings, and personally supporting the dockers in their great struggle of 1889. Industrialists, aristocrats, politicians and philanthropists were also frequently invited to open debates...Toynbee Hall also developed as a centre for the study of social problems... Public Libraries, the Whitechapel Art Gallery, children's homes and in general a more systematic approach to charity— these and many other projects developed at Toynbee (p. 84).

There were also in this period the first of various attempts at university extention to include the working class

Sometimes, these met with great success, at least for a time:

On the Tyneside, colliery owners subsidised the scheme, so keeping the cost of the courses down, and they shortly covered a wide range of subjects includ­ ing science, literature, and mining technology. At this time,...there was an unprecedented and perhaps unequalled awakening of interest in education... In 1883 the University Extension lectures were given the official support of the Durham Miners' Association. At union meetings, in the union circulars, the advantages of study were urged upon the miners. Over a thousand men attended the lectures given that winter, losing wages, and paying fines for shifts missed to learn elementary science, history, and political economy. The local secretary of the movement... adds that secular education of this kind, combined with political interest 'dealt heavy blows to the old enthusiasm for Methodist religion. Economic law was quoted where once the Sermon on the Mount had sufficed. On the union banners party cries replaced the Bible texts' (p. 89). 84

These developments ended with the miners' strike of 1887 and, according to Simon, with the greater interest in socialist political speakers. According to Simon, and people like Edward

Carpenter who were lecturers on the courses, university Q extension developed rather quickly into a middle class affair.

Just as in the "chartist" period of workers' education, the "socialist" period is characterized by two educational movements, one more autochthonous and one more "laid on" from outside. The fact of being "laid on" did not mean that the latter movement served no working class interest, however ; rather, these institutions were themselves the scene of frequent struggle.

Of equal importance to the question of workers' education was the development at this time of mass education for children. Simon presents a convincing argument that what actually took place in this period was "... the consolidation of two quite separate systems of schooling...designed to establish different types of schools for different social classes"

(p. 97); on the one hand, the English public schools, and on the other, the "board" schools set up by legislation in the

1870's. The former were and remain one of the most effective mechanisms ever devised by a bourgeoisie to maintain its cultural hegemony, to assist the reproduction of its culture :

The outcome of all this activity was to establish, the public schools as independent schools, to free them from control by any elected body whatsoever; this clearly remains the most striking difference between these and other secondary schools. That this special status should have been sought and achieved at a particular moment, when political 85 democracy was being extended, underlines the position attained by the public school system as a cornerstone of class society, a system both reflecting and perpetuating deep social divisions but beyond the reach of the normal democratic process (p. 107).

While public schools had little to do directly with workers' education, their cultural role must be recognized; that is, their effect on social reproduction through their role in cultural reproduction and their symbolic role in supporting the hegemony of a certain concept of education. In the

"board schools," however, policy was to a certain extent in the hands of locally elected school boards. Agitation for the right to stand for such boards was one of the first ventures of working people into elective politics ; their success was rewarded with the legislative removal of such positions in 1902.1°

In this third period of workers' education in Britain, then, one is dealing with highly complex developments with many contradictory aspects. Since many of these institutions continue into the present as important parts of the "system" of workers' education, one can see in this period the roots of much of the present complexity. The complexity and its contemporary ramifications is perhaps best illustrated by the history of Ruskin College, the Workers' Educational Association

(WEA), and the National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC).

Ruskin College was founded in 1899 by two Americans,

Walter Vrooman and the historian Charles Beard. It was clearly an institution founded for workers by someone else : 86

The Idea of the promoters is to establish an institution where working men of every degree will be able to spend at least one year in Oxford; to pull within their reach opportunities of sharing in high branches of education; leisure to pursue such studies as interest them and a sojourn among elevating and beautiful surroundings. Then they may use what they have acquired as they will, but it is hoped that many will go back to their trade and that the general tendency of the movement will be to implant in the working-classes of England a leaven of men who will bring to their daily work wider minds and artistic perception (J. Burns, et al. 1973:3).

Despite the non-political, "Adult School Movement" language of its statement of purpose, Ruskin was enthusiastically supported by trade unions, from which most students drew their financial support. These students were mostly adults, with working class backgrounds and jobs. By 1908, according to then-student W.W. Craik (1964), "Most of us were socialists."

Students, in alliance with the school's principal, Dennis Hird, developed considerable pressure for more Marxist content.

Developments at Ruskin quickly became connected with the new Workers' Educational Association. Founded in 1903 as an attempt to consolidate the foundering adult education and university extension programs described above, the WEA only began to make a substantial impact on workers' education with the implementation of the tutorial class method by R.H.

Tawney. (Terrill 1973) According to Albert Mansbridge, a leading co-operator and the founder of the WEA, these classes developed when industrial students manifested a great desire for more intensive study than that which was commonly available to them: 87

I came to the conclusion that the best thing would be to ask (them) to get thirty students to pledge themselves to make every attendance for two years and to write regular essays (1920:37).

The group was organized, and Tawney selected as the tutor.

According to Simon:

These tutorial classes demanded a high standard of work by the students in reading, the writing of essays, and in attendance. Approximately half of each two hour weekly session was set aside for discussion. The tutorial class represented the new educational form that had been sought, one closely linking the universities to working-class organizations and meeting an expressed need (1974:310).

Tawney and the developing voluntary branch organization of the

WEA pressed for expanded tutorial class support, in the form of tutors from Oxford and salaries from the State. They envisioned an "alternative" route to higher education for working people— from normal WEA classes to tutorials, from tutorials to Ruskin, and from Ruskin to Oxford proper.

These arguments were put forward at the same time as the Ruskin board of governors moved to remove Dennis Hird because of his socialist sympathies. Together, they were interpreted by the majority of Ruskin students as an attack on the kind of working class education which they favored. An organization was formed, the Plebs League, to promote their ideas, and members were recruited from ex-Ruskin students. When

Hird was fired in 1909 for "indiscretion by departing from literature, rhetoric, and temperance to promote socialism and atheism" (J. Burns, et al. 1973:3-4), the students went on strike. Their strike made national headlines; Brown argues that the strike "was about student democracy, about the right of 88 students to have the teaching in their college run on lines acceptable to and at least partly determined by them "

(1976:9). Shortly thereafter they went on to form the Central

Labour College (CLC) as an alternative to Ruskin and the

National Council of Labour Colleges (NCLC) as an alternative to the WEA tutorial class.

Whereas the WEA stressed impartiality and the quality of university tutors, the Plebs League put out a magazine,

Plebs, which stressed the by now familiar themes of commitment to the class and independent education. A Plebs leader and member of the Ruskin College Marxian society argued even before the strike that:

The trade unionists whom I represent view the (tutorial) movement with suspicion. They wonder why the universities have suddenly come down to help the workers to emancipate themselves (Lewis 1976:61).

Proclaiming its determination under the heading, "No Compromise with Capitalist Culture," the League made the following attack on the WEA:

Capitalism has served its historic purpose, and it is for the workers to understand its growth, functioning, and decay, in order to remove it. The governing classes through the educational institutions they control will not supply the workers with the knowledge that would give them power. They are not prepared to share their class culture with the workers, in order to bring what they call, 'a reconciling influence to bear on the problems of the day.! They are ready to give educational doles, to encourage educational co-partnership, to subsidize so-called 'workers'' educational organizations with a view to side­ tracking working class demands. Such organizations urge that education should be 'impartial and non- partisan' but impartiality is impotence (Plebs League 1920(?):1;. 89

The League and its activities expanded rapidly. This was

at least in part because its conspiratorial-type view of the

WEA kept being confirmed by WEA proponents. For example, a

call for a Ruskin-like College in Wales was supported in the

following terms:

In 1832 there were a million voters in this country. Today there are 21 million. Political power has passed to the common people. Economic power is moving in the same direction. The problem of the democratic statesman is to take measures to prevent the disastrous use of this newly-found and growing power. 'The greatest danger to the community,' said Goethe, 'is ignorance in motion.' The most powerful resistance to revolution •is education, in the widest sense of that word (Thomas Jones, secretary to the Labour Cabinet, 1925; quoted in Brown, 1976:14).

Tawney's view, while certainly not the same as Jones', was not

one of implacable opposition, either; the purpose of the

tutorials was

...to offer the miner, the engineer, or the weaver the same type of liberal education, based on history, literature, economics, and political science as a young man or woman obtains in a university...The road to impartiality, at least in social science, is to be found not in keeping partialities out, but by bringing all partialities in (1925:139&143).

Thus by the second decade of the 20th Century, as in

the 19th, the conflict over "politics vs. impartiality" had

again taken organizational form. As in the previous period,

moreover, the organizational split did not automatically

decide the question of contribution to class cultural reproduc­

tion. In fact, in the climate of labor movement expansion

before and during the World War, both the WEA and NCLC types

of education grew and developed rapidly. The relationships

between the economic, political, and educational aspects of the

working class movement were complex and took many forms. 90

For example, there was the independent educational work of John McLean in Scotland during the anti-war agitation of the 1916's and the concomitant first stirrings of the shop

steward's movement. This movement, based on a rank and file perception that trade union leadership, because of support for

the war, had sold out the interest of the shop floor, developed an educational practice which "turned the whole Clydeside into one huge tutorial class." McLean, however, eventually joined

forces with the NCLC. In areas like Sheffield, significant attempts were made to join the WEA and the NCLC together.

One of the primary bridge builders was G.D.H. Cole, of whom Brown says

I think that G.D.H. Cole...had it right when, in an article in Plebs in 1916, he argued that the Labour College erred 'in practice' in being 'far too sure that it posasses the whole truth...and far too intolerant of Labour men who do not share all its dogmas...too ready to insist on its own terminology, and its own way of thought.' Cole continued by saying, ' I do not agree with the official WEA philosophy, but I am convinced that the majority of its active members do not agree with it either' (1976:17).

In fact, there appears to be good evidence that, in

general, the WEA was pedagogically progressive and ideolo- 12 gically vapid, while the reverse was true of the NCLC.

Brown refers to the real possibility of a Labour College

strike in 1913; he comments that "The College's teaching was,

it seems, for the most part highly orthodox in form...(and)

impeccably'Oxford'.. .Lectures were the center piece " (p. 10).

Yet he goes on to argue that

In one other respect than the content, a CLC education was unique. Students were actively encouraged - in so far as they needed the encouraging - 'to develop their 91

usefulness in imparting knowledge acquired at the College in the form of addresses and lecture courses to Branches of Trade Unions, Labour and Socialist parties, co-operative Societies, and other Labour organizations.' This side of things was taken very seriously by the students, and it was probably the main feature of a CLC education which mitigated some of the problems attendant upon the extraction of working class students from their normal political and industrial activities. ...I feel certain that the CLC's function in this respect was of crucial importance in enabling it to avoid one of the malaises of other residential colleges : CLC students were less prone to suffer from agonizing over the questions which seem to have been and still are common elsewhere: such as 'What's it all for?' and 'What do I do after I have left this place?' (pp. 11-12).13

4. Post World War One

In 1920, this two-organization struggle was complicated even further by the formation of the Communist Party of Great

Britain (CPGB) . Simon comments upon this development that,

although Communists continued to participate in the work of the Plebs Leaguel4, inevitably the Communist Party found it necessary to develop its own, independent educational activity. It was in this context that Marxist education developed anew, once more in direct connection with the political movement (p. 340).

In fact, according to Harry Mac Shane,the Communist Party launched a frontal criticism of the NCLC when it opened its own education program. R. Palme Dutt criticized the NCLC for being too abstract and not relating to the need to build a party. The criticism was broadened after the failure of the

1926 General Strike. By 1933, the CPGB had declared itself as the sole repository of true Marxist education, since it felt that this was of necessity connected to the building of a party and therefore had to have a primarily internal focus. 92

The question of the vitality and power of the three competing organizations was determined by the attitude of the trade union movement, particularly the newer industrial unions.

The question was not resolved, at least in the inter-war period, however, because each of the organizations developed its own trade union base. By 1914, the NCLC had particularly close ties with the South Wales Federation of Miners and the newly formed industrial National Union of Railwayman. It later developed close ties with the National Union of Public

Employees. Yet after the war, the WEA cooperated with the

Trade Union Congress(TUC) in setting up a workers' Education

Trade Union Congress (WETUC) (Corfield 1969), a body initiated by the more conservative and Trades Confederation

(ISTC) (Howard 1976). While the CP educational program was internal and therefore not structured around affiliations at local, regional, or national level, there is ample evidence of trade unionist involvement, both at the leadership and rank and file levels (Peterson 1971:8-13;Paul 1921). All three organiza­ tions claimed working class independence in education.

The amount and character of actual educational work varied greatly in the inter-war period, depending upon the political climate. Through the WETUC, several unions set up their own educational programs, using WEA and therefore university-trained tutors. Other unions worked through the

NCLC, which at the same time was developing a mail correspondence 1 6 course program. The consensus seems to be that while

"independence" remained an attractive element of the NCLC, the 93

17 emphasis on Marxism declined rapidly. The Communist Party and, to a certain extent, the Independent Labour Party, the

Labour Party, and the Cooperative Party carried out internal educational work. Self-education was facilitated by the spread of newspapers, pamphlets, books, and independent libraries, often affiliated to workingmen's clubs. There was the 18 beginnings of an independent working class literature. In sum, the general outlines of contemporary workers' education in Britain had been set by the 1930's, with perhaps two major exceptions. One was the organizational changes consequent to the decision in 1964 by the TUC to directly exert its hegemony over workers' education; this led to the merger of the WETUC and the NCLC. The other is the development of new forms of trade union education like that which is described in the

second section of this thesis.

Major Themes in the History of Workers' Education in Britain

Although perhaps somewhat obscured by the form of presentation, the dominant theme is surely the close relation of workers' education to the trajectory of the broad working

class movement. Workers' education has developed in concert with the progress and regress of the trade unions, the shop

floor organization, and the political movements of the working

class. Workers' education is often combined with and even

indistinguishable from political action or economic action,

as in the demands of the corresponding societies triggered by

the French Revolution or the revolutionary movement for workers*

control fostered by the early shop steward^ movement. 94

Other tendencies in the history of workers' education

can also be identified. These include:

1. the tendency for workers' educators to function as working class tribunes, advocates, and agitators;

2. the attempt to practice democracy in education leading to an emphasis on: discussion, applying knowledge to experience, and seeing the purpose of education as the service of the class;

3. a tendency to conflict, difference of opinion, and controversy;

4. cultivation of the written word and the development of mass media, particularly those which feature vernacular expression;

5. the tendency toward innovation in politicizing techniques— petitions, campaigns, etc.;

6. an anti-institutional and anti-authoritarian bias; perhaps more positively, a demand for independence in form and content, developing often in response to attempts from outside the class to impose or coopt autochthonous educational institutions ;

7. a theoretical concern with the nature of knowledge accompanied by a visionary and creative belief in the power of education ;

8. a hard-headed understanding of the need to secure a working class influence on communally provided buildings and institutions, such as Cooperative Halls and a National Health Service;

9. a tendency for middle class initiated forms to become middle class dominated, yet not without a great deal of struggle ;

10. a tendency for education to develop in response to expressed, pressing needs;

11. a tendency for education to disorient working class activities ;

12. a tendency toward complexity and contradictoriness in any particular institutional form.

It is essential to understand that the tendencies identified above often exist together in a contradictory manner 95 within the same or similar institutions. In discussing workers’ education one can use a set of dichotomous terms to locate the central tendencies of any particular program,institution, or period of workers' education history. These contradictions at a perceptual level can be identified as : a. independence (autochthony) vs. dependence, or recognition and acceptance of a dialectical relationship with extra-class institutional structures; often this latter is justified through the hope of extracting resources for the class without becoming ensnared; b. self-financing vs. state or charity funding; c. political vs. impartial content; d. contemplation vs. action; e. broad (theoretical) vs. practical (narrow or production- related, technical) content ; f. condemning middle class individuals and organizations vs. working with them; g. university-trained vs. working class-trained tutors; h. intermittent vs. systematic study; i. concentration on children vs. concentration on adults ; j . belief in the spirtualizing qualities of education vs. a fear of the politicizing consequences ; k. education as pulling workers out of their class vs. education to send them back better prepared to serve the class ;

1. knowledge for its own sake vs. knowledge for power ; in. education for hegemony vs. education for co-partnership; n. unity of educational effort vs. institutional multiplicity; o. a bureaucracy's view of the purposes of education vs. a practioner's or participant's view; p. content vs. form; q. keeping the worker-student in his or her "natural" surroundings or removing him or her from them. 96

This brief historical interpretive essay has served two primary purposes. The first is to justify reproduction as a problem-generating framework; in particular, to justify taking seriously the hypothesis that collective symboling is an important part of the reproduction of subordinate cultures, especially the primary subordinate culture in the capitalist social formation, working class culture. The second purpose wa^ to give some indication of the particular kinds of relationships between working class oriented collective symboling— workers' education--and other aspects of the reproduction of working class culture: the symbols themselves, the forms of organization, the social relationships, and the forms of action. The historical sketch allows one to say two things about this relationship— that it is intimate, and that it is complex. A great deal of workers' education activity has been identified and its intimate relationship with the fortunes of the broader working class movement explored. The various tendencies and perceptual contradictions listed as conclusions of the sketch also show, however, how difficult it is to draw any overall judgement as to the contribution of workers' education to the reproduction of working class culture or the ability of the working class to control social reproduc­ tion. At the same time, the sketch suggests that such a question is well worth asking and that its exploration within a contemporary context would make an important con tribution to the understanding of the dynamics of complex societies and cultures. Similarly, in line with the critique of Marxist 97 study of class and culture developed in Chapter One, a concentration on the relationship of workers' education and the reproduction of working class culture could provide important elements of a theory of working class social revolution. NOTES

^This is an image of simple reproduction, or what Godelier (1972) refers to as "stereotypic" reproduction. See also Sahlins (1976). In a similar vein, Perlman (1972) argues that daily life is an important part of the reproduction of capitalism; this is an argument clearly within the radical reproductionist mode. 2 This is another theoretical argument for why the emphasis of the "radical reproductionist" approach is misplaced.

^With the possible exception of J.F.C. Harrison(1960), Living and Learning; A Study in the History of the English Adult Education Movement. This excellent study is marred by somie of the conceptual shortcomings pointed out in the previous chapter with regard to Williams and even on occasion Thompson. They derive essentially from an inadequate conceptualization of culture as an integrative structure and a consequent over-emphasis on a particular aspect rather than its dynamic relations with the whole. For Harrison, as for Williams, the over-emphasized aspect is the literary and literacy. Thus, although Harrison speaks of "a people's culture," he seems to want to limit the application of this notion to a proportion of the people who use the tools of reading and writing: "...a substantial minority of the working class was susceptible to literary influence, partly indigenous and partly supplied by middle class well-wishers ; (this culture) flourished during the first period of English industrialism " (p. 32).

^See Brailsford (1977) for additional material on the Levellers.

^This is also perhaps the period which has received the most thorough, integrative, and class conscious study. In an important essay, Richard Johnson lists Thompson, Harrison, and Simon (1974) as among the most important sources.

^Cultivated by people like Tom Paine in The Rights of Man.

^It must be emphasized that these existed within the context of broader political movements and were an essential part of them.

O Royden Harrison has documented the interesting inter­ action between middle class philosophical positivists and labour union leaders in the decades following Chartism and before the "new type" unions of the 1880's and '90's. This included the assistance of the intellectuals in securing legalization of the trade union movement and their contribution of a more internationalist perspective (1965).

98 99

9 A similar fate befell the contemporaneous attempts of the Conservative and Liberal parties to become mass organiza* tions, in that they failed to develop a mass, working class base.

^^Popular election of local school officials appears to be returning only in the present period, with the school governors described in Chapter Thirteen. 11 These ideas were contained in a document entitled Oxford and Working Class Education.

^^Simon (1974:317) points out how the advice to WEA economics tutors stressed that, if Marxist economics were to be discussed at all, strong emphasis should be given to the counter arguments. 13 An equally important part of the Plebs League work was the publication of a number of important pamphlets popularizing Marxism.

^^Just as, according to Brown, upon the encouragement of Plebs Leaguers like Mark Starr, many NCLCers had continued to participate in WEA tutorial classes.

^^In a 1977 presentation to the Leeds Centres for Marxist Education.

^^Since the Second World War, more unions have developed their own educational program; see Chapter Eleven.

^^Corfield argues that this was the case already by the beginning of the 1920's , and that therefore the WEA-NCLC rivalry was more organizational than ideological. 18 Perhaps the most outstanding example of this is Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1965). CHAPTER FOUR

FIELD RESEARCH ON WORKERS' EDUCATION AND THE

REPRODUCTION OF WORKING CLASS CULTURE IN

SHEFFIELD. ENGLAND

The purpose of the first chapter was to present a

critique of anthropological approaches to the problem of class-

related cultural differences, as well as a critique of Marxist

approaches to the same problem. The second chapter concentrated

on British studies of working class culture, both as a way of

justifying an alternative problématique--that of reproduction--

as an approach to the problem of class/cultural differences and

to suggest some ways in which the exploration of the problématique might be initiated. Chapter Three suggested workers' education

as a good way to approach working class culture, primarily

through documenting its historical importance and ambiguities.

The purpose of the present chapter is to explain the development

of and describe the field study actually carried out. This

includes methodological considerations, a critique of methodological literature, the research design, the selection

of field location, the field site, problems in implementing

the research design, distinctive features of the research,

the methods eventually employed, and the typologies, grounded

theories, and conclusions developed.

100 101

Methodological Considerations

It was argued in Chapter Two that the best defense

against choosing a field study that is either too broad or

too narrow is a careful attention to the problem being

addressed and the theory which helped identify the problem.

In designing the field research which was eventually carried

out in Sheffield, particular attention was paid to a number

of methodological considerations derived from the kinds of

theory laid out in the preceding chapters :

1. The necessity of a dialectical dual approach to program

functioning.

Since the primary objective of any study of contemporary workers' education was to assess the impact of this educational work on working class cultural reproduction, it was obviously

necessary to develop a field project which directed attention

toward both educational work itself and the arena of its

impact. This dual focus is necessary in order to over­

come some of the typical shortcomings of educational

anthropology described below, such as a tendency to devote

attention exclusively to educational practice rather than to

impacts. Yet a concentration on impacts alone would be of

equally limited value, since this would be blind to the

actual functioning of the educational programs. In sum, the

project would require a dual focus, and a methodology capable

of tracing the complicated interrelationships between programs

and impacts. 102

2. The necessity of selecting an appropriate functional unit.

Following more or less directly from the first considera­ tion, this meant that an appropriate reproductive system had to be selected as the unit of study. The reproductive social formation selected had to be large enough so that a large proportion of possible program impacts could be observed.

Given the theory of class consciousness developed above, the impacts of most concern had to do with the functioning of corporate groups, not just with the impact on individual class consciousness. A good case could be made that ultimately the most important reproductive social formation is not even national but international, the world system of capitalist accumation (Friedman 1976; Wallerstein 1976). A balance had to be struck between the obvious inappropriateness of field methods to such a large unit, on the one hand, and the equally inappropriate limitation to such a small unit that most potential impacts would be unobservable.

3. The necessity of cultivating both etic and emic approaches.

The concept of culture developed in Chapter Two stresses the importance of both symboling and forms of organization, action, and social relationships as parts of culture. A research method had to be devised which was capable of grasping the concepts through which people thought about what they were doing and their own articulations about the impacts of their educational work as well as providing an opportunity to compare their perceptions and conceptions with the actuality of class cultural reproduction. 103

4. The necessity of avoiding an institutional/structure- bounded approach.

In Chapter One some of the theoretical limitations of educational anthropology were indicated. One consequence of these is a rather peculiar tendency to accept formal, credentialized systems as adequate and exhaustive examples of

the notion "educational system;" this is despite another tendency to equate education with "the whole cultural process"

(Mead 1963:309). Thus, the vast majority of work in educa- 1 tional anthropology has to do with schools. While such work

is valuable enthnographically, an institutional bias hampers

overall effectiveness; unless, of course, one accepts the

enculturationist problématique. Such a bias is particularly

damaging when approaching the problem of workers' education ;

it would eliminate from consideration many of the forms

described in Chapter Three, for example, forms which clearly

involve collective symboling and which appear to have had

important impacts on class cultural reproduction. A field

project had to be designed which embraced at the outs&t as wide

a range of educational activity as possible; this would help

insure that no significant activities were excluded.

Field Method Literature Considered

There is of course a general level at which reading the

various attempts at discussions of field methods (such as Wax

(1971), Jongmans & Gutkind (1967), Adams & Preiss (1960),

Epstein (1967), and Junker (1976)) has a value in preparing

one for the variety of personal difficulties and quandaries 104 experienced in the field. Particularly useful in this regard are the more personal memoirs (such as Read (1965) and Powder- maker (1966)). However, in my attempt to find a methodological literature within anthropology to assist me with the problems toward which I was oriented by my theory, I was largely unsuccessful. Some of the work suffers from an over-emphasis on personal psychology, such as Mead and Metraux (1953) where the over-emphasis derives clearly from the culture and personality and national character tradition. Others, such as Van Velsen (1967) and Mitchell (1969) suffer ultimately from the implantation of a neo-classical economics framework onto the study of social process and an empiricist orientation to theory, a framework which carries a similar ultimate orientation to individual psychology. The methodological

suggestions are of really little help in either selecting particular events to study or in helping one discover the

crucial aspects of these events. While the early study of networks and quasi-groups by Barnes (1954) and Mayer (1966) helped reorient the discipline toward some different kinds of

groups, this study has also been led down the dead end of

attempting to develop a theory of network types which is

independent of any particular type of social formation.

Therefore, once one has recognized the existence of groups which are neither kinship nor national, the theory of networks 2 is of little help, and may indeed have negative consequences.

Another methodological misdirection is the ecumenical

press toward quantification, especially in Stacey (1969a) and 105

Kobben (1967). Both these writers present quantification as the crucial aspect of field research in complex societies, or anywhere. The problem with this approach is that it becomes a methodological imperative, leading to the shaping of field problems to available methods, rather than having methods follow from problems. These are exactly the kinds of problems which anthropologists criticize sociologists for falling into, and the kind of facile structuring of research conveyed in

Stacey serves as a good negative example.

Consideration of Naroll and Cohen's massive A Handbook of Method in (1973) led me to conceptualize my research as experimental, and I packed it and several of the works cited in my boxes to take into the field. My expectation was that once there, I might find some application of the various techniques described, but I had to look elsewhere for help in transferring the methodological considerations listed

above into a field research design. Schneider's conceptualiza­

tion of the nature of field work (1968), that anthropologists work with informants who come in bunches, not in samples, was

a help, particularly in conjunction with Berreman's (1962)

Behind Many Masks. This work describes the difficulties of

carrying out field work in a stratified society while at the

same time justifying the work in the face of difficulties. I

realized that there would be limitations on my bunch of

informants, but the work could still be useful; again, its

experimental nature was to be emphasized. 106

In many ways the most useful methodological material for me was drawn more from sociology than anthropology. The work of Gullahorn and Strauss (1960) and Roy (1970) in particular stressed the impossibility of basing one's work on a presumed joint cultural pattern and social interest in industrial societies. They argue that among trade unionists, expressions of neutrality are rightly taken as expressions of non-support. This literature directly contradicts a premise of early industrial anthropology, particularly that carried out by the Tavistock Institute, that industrial research can only be carried out when management, supervisors, and workers all agree to it (Jacques 1951:7). Since common perception of such joint interest is the case in only a small proportion of circumstances, to concentrate on such situations is an example of research distorting reality.

Perhaps the most useful methodological piece for me was Glaser and Strauss (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory.

This work, reacting to a Parsonian "hypothesis-testing" imperative in sociological research, attempts to outline a research methodology in which hypotheses are generated in the field rather than prior to the field period. While the

Parsonian mode to which they were responding was not a dominant trend in anthropology, the methodology toward which they were striving had clear counterpoints in my own experience at fieldwork. I read in Glaser and Strauss a justification for a dialectical field methodology, a contrapuntal interplay between theory, participant experience, and theorizing on that experience; 107

this last was in turn compared with the original theory to

develop new hypotheses to be tested in the field. Upon

rereading the book, I find my initial reading rather a loose

construction, although the "constant comparative method" is

still a useful rubric for what in fact most anthropologists do.

Research Design

The first feature of the research design was the

seTection of a medium sized industrial city as the appropriate

functional unit for research. Such a unit would overlap with

appropriate local structures of trade union and educational

organizations ; it would include both the unit of residence and

the place of work for most workers, and it would provide the

context for a broad spread of the kinds of workers' educational

activity which theoretical considerations dictated.

Once an appropriate site was selected, the second

feature would be an informed, participative survey of all of the

types of activity going on in the city which are either called workers' education or could reasonably be held to be workers'

education. The survey was to be participative— that is, each

form of activity would be experienced as well as queried--and

it was to be informed. This meant two things : 1) that

participation in the activities would, as much as possible,

involve discussions about them with participants, particularly

those with organizing and educational environment-constructing

responsibility; in short, I would hope to be invited to

participate as much as possible, and participate as fully as

possible, by being a tutor, sitting on panels, or asking 108

questions from the audience ; 2) that I would also participate

in as many aspects of the working class movement as possible

which had only a secondary or even no consciously-articulated

educational function. In such situations, I would be able to

begin to perceive the effects of the educational work and to

test the various theories of educational impact put forward by

my contacts and informants.

In order to carry out a survey informed by participa­

tion in both the educational and the broader aspects of the working class movement, it would be important to select a site

in which my contacts and the perception of my social character would make this possible. I would be asking my initial

contacts not only for information and assistance, but in a

sense for sponsorship and entree into various educational,

political, social and economic situations. At least some of

these situations would be the focus of considerable attention

in the struggle between working class and dominant class

culture. Based on my own political experience, I was convinced

that such a research strategy could only succeed if I went

beyond the bounds of "normal" anthropological participation and

entered as actively into the political life of the working

class as I could. This meant putting forward my political

ideas and working to organize around them, so that my informants

would respond to me as a political actor as well as a visiting

American curiosity.

It may be useful to clarify how this methodology was

conceived by relating it to discussions regarding "theoretical" 109 vs. "applied" social science. This research design includes elements of the former, as for example, its development of problem out of a critique of existing literature and in site selection guided by a "best case" approach. It also contains elements of the latter, in that the design calls for the attempt to participate fully in on-going cultural activities and to apply cultural knowledge to those activities. It is perhaps best seen as an attempt to combine the theoretical dialectics of Glaser and Strauss (1967) with the "practical" dialectic of Paulo Freire (1971). Like Glaser and Strauss, theory is developed in the field to account for the cultural practices observed, and then this theory is applied to an ever broader range of comparative experiences, in order that more general theory might be developed. Like Freire, the contexts and content of educational work in which my own knowledge was to be applied were developed from the existing, on-going cultural practice observed in the field. Similarly, my ability to participate actively in the working class movement would develop as I learned more through research. Theory was to be tested against data gathered through observation; where possible it was also to be tested against data derived from attempts at active intervention in the social processes being investigated. In short, theory was to be derived from practice and tested through its application to practice, or praxis.

There are dangers in such a methodology. These include the posibility that the perspectives for which one argues become obstacles to one's perceptions regarding actual cultural dynamics ; science is replaced by politics. Another danger is 110 the possibility that arguing for some positions cuts one off from effective interaction with other perspectives different from the one for which one is arguing. Perhaps the most fundamental problem is trying to examine phenomena in which one is actively engaged and occasionally trying to change.

In defense of this methodology I would argue that more traditional notions of "objectivity" and "neutrality" are ill- suited to a highly conflict-ridden and politicized field situation, and that an active involvement can allow one unique access to the kind of "practitioners' knowledge" (Braverman 1974;

Roy 1970) from which one might otherwise be excluded. Indeed, the kind of "disinterested participant" who is perhaps the typical ethnographic paragon is subject to at least as many moral and ethical difficulties as the "active" participant :

Is not one's "affective neutrality" with regard to matters of belief when participating in religious ceremonies likely to have a significant effect on one's ethnography?

It is an elementary political lesson that one's ideas are only made effective through groups. It is within groups that arguments and concepts are put forward, and it is by membership in groups that one attains legitimacy. Most

importantly, it is within group practice that the kind of collectivization of workers' knowledge takes place in which it was essential to participate. The opportunity to carry out

the participative aspects of the research would be dependent upon my ability to become involved in important worker

education groups ; such participation would in turn provide Ill

sponsorship and legitimacy in the broad variety of activities undertaken by those in the workers' education network. At the

same time the groups would mediate the effects of my personal

intervention. The ultimate justification of the research methodology would not be its relationship to "applied" or

"theoretical" goals, but it would be the kind of collectivized knowledge to which participation in the groups of workers

educators would give one access. At the same time such

group involvement would fit my praxis into the existing situation,

thereby reducing the idiosyncratic nature of my participation.

The third feature of the research would be the develop­ ment of a range of intensive mini-studies of particular issues which the field experience had led me to believe were of

crucial importance. The informed, participative survey would

lead to recognition that some forms were of only marginal

relevance to the reproduction of working class culture, while

other forms were central. A sense of similarities and differences would develop, leading to various typological schemes for

grouping worker education. The mini-studies would help me test

models of the dynamics underlying the various typologies;

concentration on them would gradually overtake more and more

of my time as the field work proceeded. While I had some

general notions about the kind of issues these mini-studies

might address (such as the existence of a specific workers'

education pedagogy, or the role of workers' education in

climatic class events, such as a strike or sit-in), their

selection and determination of specific methods to explore

each would take place in the field. 112

A fourth feature would include a short field study in one or two other locations for comparative purposes, basically to replicate the informed survey or to follow out a particular mini-study.

In sum, this research was seen as embodying the kinds of methodological considerations referred to above. It had a dialectical, dual focus, allowing participative study of both educational programs and their effects ; the functional unit chosen could be held likely to be appropriate; it integrated both significant emic and etic components ; and it was not bound to an institutional/structural imperative, either that of a particular institution or formal institutions in general.

The design entailed some risks, particularly associated with site selection and entry to the field. A place had to be selected and relationships established rather quickly so that

I could become a functioning part of the working class movement, an active participant in the processes which I hoped to study.

If done properly, the method would provide a rare opportunity for the testing of empirically-grounded theory through interaction based on the theory with those people from whom it was derived. In Marxist parlance, this is praxis.

Site Selection

This was begun through discussions with my own political and workers' educational associates in the United States. One suggested a long letter to the director of the Institute for

Workers' Control in Nottingham, England, plus a copy of my 113 grant proposal; this resulted in enthusiastic support and suggestions of several additional people to write. Several of these correspondents suggested Sheffield as a good location for the study proposed. My acceptance of an invitation to come to Sheffield from Michael Barratt Brown of the Extramural

Department of Sheffield University meant essentially that field entree had been arranged through political contacts, and that a site had been selected which would provide optimum conditions for implementing the research design.

The Site Selected; Sheffield

Sheffield is the largest British city to be located above the fall line in the foothills of mountains. Its relative isolation and, until the last hundred years or so, meager linking transportation facilities have contributed to a reputation for provincialism and a local area-orientation. It is the major city (estimated population of 559,800) of the new county of South Yorkshire, on the Eastern slope of the

Southern End of the Pennines and is about 175 miles from

London.

The key to Sheffield however, is its industrial history. Records indicate that in the 12th Century, iron from local deposits was worked in the area, was mined, and smithies were prospering. In the Miller's Tale written in the 14th Century, Chaucer refers to a "Sheffield thwitel" or small multi-purpose knife, an indication that the area and its industrial products had something of a national reputation already. By the 18th Century, the negative pressure of its 114 isolated location— which made small, high-value goods a must— and the positive advantage of abundant local coal, ironstone, wood for charcoal, water-power from numerous small streams, and millstone grit for grinding, meant that Sheffield had established a virtual monopoly on the cutlery trade.

Big industry came to Sheffield with the invention of the crucible process for making steel by a local craftsman,

Benjamin Huntsman, in 1740. The first railroad was built in

1838, and steel-making received another big lift when the first functional Bessemer-process oven in the world was opened in

Sheffield in 1859.

Between 1780-1900, Sheffield was transfomed from a small manufacturing town of perhaps 17,000 people into a major industrial complex, with a population of over 400,000 (Reid 1976:275).

In the 1940*s, local Communist Party election brochures boasted that the concentration of steel and engineering (metal working) along the River Don in Sheffield was the largest in the world.

Sheffield should be considered one of the major centers of the Northern English culture area, which, according to

Barratt Brown, "...have...the longest industrial experience in the country and highly developed local cultures " (1970:68).

One of these highly developed local cultures is that of the

Sheffield working class:

Thus it was that Sheffield artisans were at once among the first to demand full political rights for themselves and among the first to perfect their trade union organizations (Mendelson, et al., 1958:7). 115

There were active unions in Sheffield from 1720, and effective joint actions are recorded after 1820. The first official

Trades' Council was founded in 1858, just a short time before the so-called "Sheffield Outrages" (Melton 1975) involving militant trade union action to defend the principle of the closed shop. This attempt to use force to stop the employing of non-unionized labor became inflamed into a national, anti­ union scandal. Other notable parts of Sheffield labor history include the strong anarchist movement of the 1890's, the first really coherent shop stewards' organization in the nation 3 during the First World War, the militant anti-"means test" demonstrations of the 1930's, and the political strikes and factory occupations of the 1960's and 1970's.

Working class political activity has been equally important, certainly since the time of the Left majority on the local council in 1848 (Mendelson, et a l ., 1958:12).

There was significant early involvement in the Labour Represen­ tational Committee, forerunner of the Labour Party, and a strong input of local labor leadership in the founding of the

Communist Party of Great Britain immediately after the First

World War. Since the General Strike of 1926, the Labour

Party has ruled continuously with two brief exceptions, and significant Communist, Left Labour, and other working class- oriented political organizations flourish in the present period.

This strong working class culture is partly a function of Sheffield's geographical isolation and separation from the 116 national scene, but it has cultural roots as well. As historian

Sidney Pollard, author of the authoritative (1959) study of

Sheffield Labour puts it.

South Yorkshire was not typical in everything. It stands out in one respect, again and again taking the national lead and setting the tone for national movements. This was its independence of spirit, its rebelliousness...There is consistency throughout in the defense of the weak against the strong, the poor against the rich, and the underprivileged against those who have usurped power, pelf, and privilege... But there is consistency here also of opposition to central authority...(T)he lack of overt influence of South Yorkshire in national politics is but the counterpart of its leading role in opposition to it: It represents the hidden, the equally signifi­ cant alternative in the dialectic of history (Pollard & Holmes 1976:5-6).

The strength of working class culture in Sheffield is reflected in the frequent characterization of the city by its inhabitants as "A working class city." This is certainly an apt characterization of much of the physical properties of the city;^ public buildings, other than the Victorian Town Hall, have a spare, functional, frilless quality; there is strong emphasis on pedestrian security and public transport. The

Labour-dominated local government appears to be free of corruption, politically alive, and progressive, defending its policies as steps to socialism and being often in the forefront of issues like housing, education, and social services. In political terms, Sheffield is Social Democracy in command.

In economic terms, the industries of steel, engineering, and metal goods continue to account for almost 25% of employment, despite large-scale redundancies (lay-offs) in the recent past

(South Yorkshire Contact 1976:15). This contributes greatly 117

to the distinctively proletarian quality of the city. The

Sheffield District Trades'Council has over 150,000 affiliated members. Despite the influx of immigrants into several of

Sheffield's industries, the minority population is only 3.3%,

or 17,000 (Sheffield Star, February 18, 1977).

Sheffield pioneered in municipal services and practices;

in addition to housing, health care, and transport, these

include running an independent print shop and a Direct Works

(building) Department. This latter builds most of the public

housing and remains among the most successful in the country

(Tilly 1976).^ The South Yorkshire Working Class Culture

Research Scholarship has been sponsored at Sheffield University

by the new county council.

Workers' education in Sheffield has a distinguished

history as well as strong contemporary presence. The Society

for Constitutional Information, "in its day the largest in

the country, opposing the early ideas of the French Revolution

to the corrupt tyranny which then misgoverned Britain "

(Pollard & Holmes 1976:5), was one of the first manifestations

of this. Another was the Sheffield Corresponding Society

(Thompson 1963). In fact, references to events in Sheffield

are peppered throughout the work of people like Thompson and

Simon. Early socialist educators like Carpenter and Ruskin

chose Sheffield as a base for their operations. There was an

early Mechanics Institute, a local Labour College, and one of

the pioneering programs in day release education for trade

unionists. Today, this latter program continues vigorously. 118 supplemented by a strong working-class orientation to the program of the local educational authority and a variety of activities by local political organizations.

In sum, Sheffield is a particularly good "case" for studying the impact of workers' education upon the reproduction of working class culture: it has strong working class traditions, a high degree of working class self-identification, a relatively diversified industrial sector which is still vigorous, and a strong local working class education movement.

Problems in Implementing the Research Design

1. The fecundity of the research site. The variety of forms of workers' education and new initiatives within the working class movement meant that the informed, participative survey was not nearly as simple as I had imagined. This problem was dealt with by extending the survey throughout the field period and setting some priorities for participation, within the limits of the contact network. This was one of the primary reasons for abandoning the comparative stage of the research design.

2. The complexity of educational and working class activity. Not only was there a lot of it; it was also very complex, a consequence of the long history and the generation of alternative structures in different historical periods.

The complexity was manifest in organizational differences and jealousies which added to the difficulties of maintaining a useful network of contacts and support. Attempting to resolve 119

some of the contradictions among workers* educators became one

of my forms of praxis, including helping people with similar

perspectives to make contact with each other, defending the

practice of particular groups to those who were hostile,

criticizing practices which I thought were sectarian, and

helping to set up a Workers' Education Group (WEG) in Sheffield,

to help break down some of the organizational boundaries.

3. Strains within my contact network. As I became more deeply involved in what was going on in workers' education

and in the working class movement, urging particular courses of

action, etc., this on occasion led me into conflict with members

of the various groups with whom I was working, conflict

particularly over political analysis. On occasion, this con­

flict was personally distressing as well as inhibiting to the

research. In these situations, I became dependent upon my

network of workers' education contacts for personal and

political support in addition to research assistance. The

imperatives of the preservation of the network sometimes took

priority over possible extensions of the research. In this

way, I became dependent upon the reproduction of working

class culture; indeed, I became a part of this process,

experiencing directly both its achievements and failures.

4. Understandable but unjustified political suspicions.

A factor which contributed significantly to the problem noted

just above was the suspicion of outsiders by working class

political activists. The question of whether or not I was an

agent of some foreign government was raised on numerous occasions 120

It was given sharp focus by the decision of the Labour

Government during the field study to expel two Americans who had revealed political espionage information. Left analyses of these events led to the conclusion that they took place at the behest of the CIA, implying significant CIA involvement in

Britain, and leading in turn to the question of the plausibility of my being involved with "the Company." Though incorrect, these suspicions were justifiable and understandable,^ but there is very little one can do to refute such suspicions.

Unfortunately, some of my contacts chose to relate to these suspicions by referring to me jokingly as "our local man from the CIA." On occasion, research leads were blocked by the consequences of the suspicion, combined with a tendency to relate to me as "middle class," a disparaging term but quite reasonably applied to a grant-financed, automobile aided, academic visitor from the United States.

These problems came to something of an emotional and personal crisis for me when I went with my family to an evening cultural festival organized by the community of Chilean exiles in Sheffield. These were the fortunate ones, those lucky to be alive; though forced to live on the opposite side of the world, partly as a consequence of policies carried out by "my" government, they had found a certain modicum of working class hospitality. I was overwhelmed by the openness of the Chileans in their attempt to cultivate their own culture at the same time as contributing to that of their hosts, and I felt both 121 personally responsible for their problems and envious of their cultural integration compared to my own feelings of estrangement.

5. A contradiction between my etically-derived research categories and the emic ones used by my informants.

While perhaps the modal term, "workers education" was no coherent symbol of the sort which for Schneider (1968) and

Geertz (1966) is basic to cultural systems. Many of my contacts and informants used the term only to apply to an historical period, or only to certain aspects of the contemporary situation. Some felt its identification with the

Workers' Educational Association (WEA), which in their opinion had little to do with the working class, meant that the term was tainted. Similar problems of mismatch between etic and emic perspectives were involved with the use of my term "the reproduction of working class culture." These problems included the relative uniqueness of having the concept "reproduction" applied to a cultural process, as well as a tendency to use the term "working class culture" in either a particularistic or artistic sense.

Disparities between etic and emic perspectives are a concomitant of disparities between the actual processes going on in society and the representation of those processes in human thought; Marxists argue that such disparities are an inevitable and necessary part of inegalitarian social orders.

Were there nothing to discover beyond what the "natives" think,there would be no justification for anthropology, other 122

than as a kind of a translating service. Nonetheless, some terminological equivalencies have to be developed if the etic/ emic contradiction is to be handled adequately.

This was not particularly difficult in my research. With regard to workers' education, it was mostly a matter of explaining what I meant by the term to my informants ; most were willing to allow me to continue using it, while some translated it to "working class education" as a mechanism for distinguishing class-oriented symboling from symboling aimed at

the working class from outside it. A broad notion of "the working class movement" substituted adequately for "the repro­ duction of working class culture"; the former has a clear action and political connotation to recommend it; the latter

is perhaps more suggestive of cross-cultural comparison, as well as fitting into a specific theoretical frame.

6. Finding housing in a working class neighborhood.

There are essentially three ways working class people find housing in Sheffield, where 40% of the housing stock is public

and where much of the older housing has been destroyed, either by German bombing in World War Two, or by local council

redevelopment. One way is to wait several years for housing

to be supplied through the local council; a second is to buy

and refurbish some of the old, marginal housing not yet

destroyed; the third is to squat in unoccupied housing. None

of these were really possible, so the first real opportunity

for affordable housing, in an outlying village recently

incorporated into Sheffield, was taken. A possible impact is 123 that the research has more of a "city-wide" rather than "local neighborhood" cultural orientation.

Research Methods Actually Employed

Within a few days of coming to Sheffield, I was able to consolidate two contacts which proved to be of great value in carrying out the proposed research. The first was with

Michael Barratt Brown, at that time Senior Lecturer in the

Department of Extramural Studies, Sheffield University. He cooperated fully in my project and helped me with access to a number of workers' education institutions and aspects of the working class movement, access which was greatly facilitated by the fact that he is personally involved at a high level in a broad range of these activities. The second contact was with

Stephen Blomfield and the Sheffield Science for People group.

This group is active in providing educational and support services for a number of industrial and community groups, particularly around the issue of industrial health and safety.

As a newer group. Science for People helped me find access to many of the newer, less-official aspects of the working class movement than I might have been able to become involved in otherwise. These two men gave me initial entree very rapidly and also, because of their different places in the working class movement, insured aspects of the dialectical, contrapuntal research rhythm I had desired.

Through such contacts I was able to develop a network of contacts which led to the participatory, informed survey on 124 workers' education I desired. All in all, my wife and I

participated in over 200 workers* education events in Sheffield,

the wide-ranging character of which is described in the third

section of this dissertation. At the same time, I was able

to gain access to less-educationally-oriented aspects of the working class movement, such as the Sheffield District Trades'

Council, its sub-committees on industrial health and safety,

the campaign to stop cuts in public spending, and the working

women's charter; Constituency and District Labour Party

meetings ; Communist Party branches and Socialist Worker Party

aggregate meetings; demonstrations, strikes, tenants' and other

community groups, and other actions. Through these two forms

of participation, I was able to develop a very concrete idea of

how the working class movement in Sheffield functions.

Grounded Theories

As it became evident that the wide range of activity

going on in Sheffield that one could call workers' education

would force some system of priorities on me, I began to

develop my own typology of types of education.^ This led to

my first real attempt at field-based grounded theory, a

typology of forms of workers' education based on

epistemological theories about the knowledge which was the

preferred content of workers' education. One theory, which I

called education u p , stressed that the content of workers'

education should be generated from the workers themselves and

conveyed upwards. Education down is a perspective in which

content is discovered elsewhere— by managements, scientific 125

research, essayists, etc.— and brought to the workers from

outside. A third perspective, which I called education across

informs those programs purporting agnosticism on the question

of where working class knowledge comes from and therefore may

tend to concentrate instead on developing skills to communicate knowledge from whatever source.

This typology was obviously related to debates which have recurred within British workers'education— those between

proponents of provided and autochlhonous education in the

Chartist period, or between the WEA and the NCLC in the early

20th Century. I decided to try to develop the typology because my associates and those I interviewed continued to raise many

of these same issues in regard to the contemporary forms I was

experiencing. I was learning of this history at the same time

as I was in the field, and both experiences helped me to under­

stand that while such a typology had some usefulness, it was

limited to distinguishing the intentions of the various forms,

intentions which might or might not correspond to their actual

functioning and their effects.

In retrospect, the typology was most useful in so far as

it helped me make some decisions about priorities, essentially

allowing me to hypothesize that the greater its emphasis on

education down, the less likely it was that a form would play

a significant role in the reproduction of working class culture.

While this hypothesis w a s , for my purpose confirmed by my 8 contacts with various examples of industrial training, the

typology was not of that much use with regard to how other 126 types of programs actually function. As one of my informants put it, the best programs are likely to include significant doses of all three approaches. It became evident that a typology which adequately captured the character of the practice of various forms of workers' education would depend on factors additional to the articulated theory of content. Much of the participative, informed survey was in fact an exploration of a variety of hypotheses about particular forms suggested by my informants. These suggestions came in a variety of contexts, but a particularly fruitful context was long, open-ended taped interviews with those informants with whom I had established a modicum of trust. In these conversations, I often tended to probe deeply with regard to the impacts of certain forms and programs, and informants' responses, both in terms of percept and concept, were particularly helpful in formulating specific hypotheses.

A second grounded general theory, pressed on me by a number of informants, concerned the overall value of a multiplicity of institutions involved in workers' education.

Any one institution, it was argued, would have to make adjustments to the dominant forces in society; these adjustments would enhance some kinds of educational work but would obviate the possibility of other kinds. Different institutions could complement each other in their work; in more extreme forms, this theory involved a kind of unarticulated division of labor and informally established understandings of non-interference. In essence, it was a rejection of the Plebs attack on the WEA, and 127

it was most frequently associated with programs which

institutionalize! an "education across" approach.

Impressed by the broad range of activity in Sheffield,

I often found the "multiplicity" theory quite attractive. It was particularly attractive in opposition to the kinds of

superficial attacks by those in one program upon those in

another which I witnessed in many occasions. Such attacks were

frequently based on no experience with the form being attacked;

instead, they were based on poorly-articulated and certainly non-shared symbolizing. The limitations of the theory were made vivid, however, in the battle over institutional identifi­

cation of a program to promote trade union education for women.

This battle is described in Chapter Fourteen.

Mini-projects

About halfway through the field period, a decision was made to design and concentrate efforts on five mini-projects,

as proposed in the research design. These included:

1. A comparative study of the pedagogical theory of four workers' education providing institutions : The Department of Extramural Studies of Sheffield University (EXM); the Sheffield Science for People group (SfP) (and through them, the Sheffield District Workers Educational Association, (SDWEA) for whom SfP did significant industrial work); The Trade Union Congress (TUC) educational program in South Yorkshire; and the Sheffield District Communist Party (SDCP). The methodology developed stressed analysis of pedagogical materials and products, interviews with practitioners, and participant observation of as many meetings concerned with educational matters as possible. My informed survey had indicated that these four providers were particularly important.

2. The construction of a framework for assessing the impact of the educational practice of the afore- 128

mentioned organizations. In addition to the methods listed under #1, I participated as a "student" and "tutor" in each of the four programs, and I carried out structured observation of their educational events. The goal was to develop a set of relevant impact criteria for each of them, develop possible measures of these impacts, and use whatever opportunities presented themselves to carry out the measures.

3. A study of the institutional structure of (originally several, but later reduced) one working class housing estate. The procedure here was to construct through participant obser­ vation a thorough institutional and organizational census of the self-developed and community-oriented institutions and to assess their role in the reproduction of the class culture. The housing area chose was the Valley Estate, often referred as the most desirable council estate in Sheffield and the one with the most highly-develoned institutional structure and tenants' association. The organizational census included the tenants' activities, a nearby adult education centre, working­ men's clubs, church groups, and political groups.

4. A case study of the campaign to block further cuts in public spending. Through analysis of campaign materials, interviews with important participants, and participation in meetings and public events, I planned to develop an understanding of this particular working class public mass educational and agitational activity. I focused particularly on the role of the Sheffield District Trades' Council and the National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) both locally and nationally.

5. A case study of the campaign and strike to stop closure of a local light engineering firm, the Balfour-Darwin's Capital Tool works. Through analysis of materials, interviews, and participa­ tion, I attempted to comprehend the strategic decisions and their consequences as well as the educational work (or lack thereof) involved in the campaign. It was organized primarily through the shop stewards' movement, the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (ConFed), and the Sheffield District Communist Party. 129

Conclusions

Carrying out these mini-studies, the "constant comparison" of my developed-in-the-field grounded theories about the dynamics of workers' education, and various attempts to develop an empirical typology for workers' education in

Sheffield led me eventually to the typology and conclusions contained in this dissertation. The mini-studies provided a useful mechanism for structuring a dialectical interplay between theory and typology, since they forced me to be conscious of the theory which informed various attempts at categorization. They helped me clarify the flaw in the first general grounded theory--that theory based on program intent independent of program inpact is inadequate--as well as the difficulties with the second--that a multiplicity of providing contexts is not necessarily an advantage to the reproduction of subordinate cultures. At the same time, the mini-studies revealed fundamental similarities in the dynamics of the various types of workers' education, similarities which, despite different conditions, indicated important structural corres­ pondences .

My third attempt at grounded theory, then, was the notion that particular conjunctions of forces shaping the process of social reproduction led to the creation of certain niches within which the actual possibilities for the development of workers' education exist. Various forces shape the niches-- bourgeois culture, working class culture, the capitalist political economy and mode of production, the capitalist world 130 system, the world-wide struggle for national liberation, and the past history of the process of social reproduction itself— and create certain possibilities. The distinctive character of each possibility or niche can be summarized in terms of two criteria: on the one hand, the amount of social wealth allocated to educational work within the niche, and on the other, the extent of mechanisms for working class control of the resources available. The third stage of grounded theory held that the simii lari ties among the forms were attributable to the underlying dynamics of the reproduction of working class culture developed in Chapters Two and Three, such as the symboling necessitated by subordinate cultural status under capitalism, etc. The differences derived from the responses of any particular program to the specific conditions of wealth and control in the particular niche in which any particular form was developing. Each niche had its own possibilities and limitations, and the performance of any particular program should be evaluated in terms of the niche it occupied or was attempting to occupy. An hypothesis was derived from this theory: that tutors could learn from those who worked in

Other niches if the differences were understood, and that such learning would benefit the whole situation within which workers' education takes place, or the "system" of workers' education.

This hypothesis was tested through organizing the Workers'

Education Group.

The general theory also provided the basis of a typology of workers' education in Sheffield, a typology of forms used in this dissertation. These forms are: 131

1) Day release education;

2) Workplace-based education;

3) Shop steward education;

4) Research;

5) Public education;

6) Public adult education;

7) Full time higher education for working class adults ;

8) Community experience;

9) Independent political education.

In Sheffield, each of these forms has a particular configuration of social resources and working class control.

This configuration (actually, a set of possible configurations within certain limits) provides the context for any particular program, and the configuration can either be simply accepted or responded to creatively. Understanding a creative response in one form can be useful, mutatis mutandis, to another.

This third "cultural ecdogy" stage of grounded theory, and the associated typology described above, were sharpened in the analysis of materials which followed the field period.

Before they can be described adequately, the reader may desire a more full and specific description of the kind of field experience and data generated in the field which leads to these conclusions. This consideration has led to the development of a rather lengthy case study of one particular form of workers' education in Sheffield, the day release education program of the Sheffield University Department of Extramural Studies. 132

This program is described and its relationship to working class cultural reproduction analyzed in Section Two.

The lengthy and careful argumentation of this section should not be taken as an indication of the significantly greater importance of the form of day release as compared to other forms. While it is true that day release has a particularly favorable niche in terms of resources and working class control, each of the other forms described in Section

Three has its own advantages. At the beginning of that section, an introduction will identify the relationships of the dynamics of each form. Following that section, a conclusion will return to the general theory of workers' education, particularly the question of the workers' education "system." NOTES

^This is evident in both the texts on educational anthropology, such as Zintz (1969) and Nicholson (1968), and the collections of articles, such as Spindler (1963), lanni and Storey (1972), and Wax, Diamond, and Gearing (1971). 2 In Chapter Fourteen, I describe how a legitimate reading of the anthropological theory of networks lead to some serious errors in educational work by Tom Lovett (1975); these are pointed out in Ashcroft and Jackson (1974). 3 The earlier Clydeside movement was quickly destroyed; See Moore (1970 (?)).

^The skyline is dominated by high-rise council (public) housing.

^One of the more absurd commentaries on the present fiscal crisis of Britain is that this department is so efficient that it is building houses to sell on the open market, since public capital is not available to invest in as much public housing as is needed.

^See, for example, Hirsch and Fletcher (1977) for a discussion of CIA involvement in various aspects of the working class movement. This whole issue is a graphic example of how political espionage interfers with legitimate academic research,

^Even my network of contacts imposed no particular limits, in spite of a marked tendency for those involved in one type of workers education to be highly critical of those involved in others. g A visit to the Industrial Training Research Unit in Cambridge, for example, convinced me that there was no room for any self-conscious concentration on working class culture within the programs designed by this unit, which in fact was the major designer of training programs throughout Britain.

133 * SECTION II:

SHEFFIELD UNIVERSITY DAY RELEASE

EDUCATION FOR TRADE UNIONISTS:

A CASE STUDY CHAPTER FIVE

TRADE UNION DAY RELEASE EDUCATION

Since 1952, the Department of Extramural Studies of the has run a program of "day release" education for trade unionists which is of immense importance for recent workers' education in Britain. These workers are

"released for the day" from their normal work in order to do educational work. However, managements sometimes act as if they would have workers think that day release is an undeserved gift. Workers who accept this point of view as well are some­ times less serious than others in their approach to educational work.

In terms of the combination of breadth of coverage and depth of educational work, day release is comparable in scope only to innovations like the right recently won by Italian workers jto 150 hours of released time every three years for educational work. (The typical Sheffield student has 432 hours during the three years of his or her course.) The program at

Sheffield has provided a significant model, both in terms of shop steward training and general membership education, for the recent development of a national trade union education program under the auspices of the TUC. One can also see that the program has had a role in justifying recent Parliamentary legislation requiring time off for industrial education and in contributing

135 136 to recent changes in the structure of industrial relations in

Britain, such as the experiments with "worker directors" which aim at permitting workers more participation in industrial decision-making.

The existence of this program was a prime justification for locating a study of workers' education in Sheffield; con­ sequently, a great deal of time in the field was devoted to studying the program and its effects. This study led to the conclusion that in significant ways, despite a context of political diversity and the absence of a current articulated organizing strategy, the Sheffield day release program manifests a working class perspective. I also concluded that changes in the system of workers' education in Britain raise some doubts as to how viable the program will be in the future. It is the purpose of this chapter and the ones that follow to explain how and why these conclusions were reached. The first deals with the theoretical practice of day release, the others with the praxis, or implementation of the theory constructed.

ON "A WORKING CLASS PERSPECTIVE"

In the preceding chapter on research methods, I described the process whereby I discovered a relationship between my (etic) research problem and the (emic) concerns of the workers' educa­ tors who were my primary informants in the field. I pointed out the existence of a broad cultural category roughly analogous to my concept of workers' education, and a concern for a broad working class movement conceptually relatable to my notion of 137 working class cultural reproduction. Most important, I pointed out how the relationship between these two emic constructs was a matter of great concern to my informants, whether tutors, students, or working class activists, and that the relationship was generally cast in terms of arguments over whether any given program had or did not have a working class orientation or perspective.

An argument for the presence of such a perspective often constituted a positive evaluation of the relationship between the program and the working class movement, and conversely; in fact, one could say that, in emic terms, the existence of such a positive relationship between the education and the movement is what defines a working class perspective. In the present chapter, the Sheffield program is thoroughly described. The following chapters demonstrate a meaningful relationship between my informants' emic perspective and my etic view by 1) describing the results of my analysis of all the information gathered in the field regarding the functioning of the program; and 2) summarizing these results in terms of the arguments for and the arguments against the existence of a working class perspective in the program. It is out of a concern to demonstrate this emic-etic relationship that I have cast the conclusions about the program in these terms. In essence, though my arguments will be longer and more rigorous, it will be fundamentally similar to many that I heard in the field.

A brief example may serve to clarify the emic process to which I am referring. My field notes record a conversation 138 which occured among members of the Sheffield Science for

People group (including myself) after a class on hazards

at work:

Group member #1: "I can't believe how together the blokes from ----- glass factory are. I asked one of them how large the glass industry was. He proceeded to tell me how difficult it was to say exactly, because the Government's standard statistical atlases group glass workers with chemical workers. He then went on to describe some of the different processes used to arrive at an estimate of the industry. Amazing!"

Group member #2: "I would imagine that it's because of their involvement in the day release program. That's the kind of topic they cover in the first year."

Group members #1 and #3 (together, looking at each other): "I hope not!"

Group member #1: "I had always heard that that program was supposed to be just a path for careerists."

A long conversation ensued regarding various aspects of the

day release program and its contribution to the movment.

What this excerpt reveals is the nature of the argument and

the kinds of evidence which are cited as relevant to the

question of what place a program has in what I call the

reproduction of working class culture.

However phrased, the existence of a working class

perspective is important for my etic problem independent of

its relationship to the concerns of my informants. As pointed

out in Chapter Four, the major determining parameters of any

particular form of workers' education are rooted in a par­

ticular dialectic, that between 1) the amount of social 139 wealth allocated to the particular form and 2) the extent to which the form is controlled by the working class and is not oriented exclusively to the needs of the accumulation process; i.e., the imperatives of the capitalist economic system. In terms of this particular dialectic, Sheffield

University day release is quite remarkable. The large wages' bill of released workers means that the social wealth repre­ sented by the program is high; this is significant considering the great possibilities for working class control of the program. There has certainly been a major struggle over its control. It was argued by my informants that the day release struggle was paradigmatic for adult education; one of them referred to the battle over courses in the steel industry as "adult education's William Tyndale" (see Chapter Thirteen).

In concluding my discussion of the consequences of day release,

I will return to this wealth/control dialectic.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY RELEASE PROGRAM

The Table on the following page summarizes a variety of information about the day rélease program and its offerings at the tii&e of the field study. This includes information about the various locations in South Yorkshire and where the classes are held, the unions participating in the program, the number of years that each student is involved in the course, the number of classes, the subject matter, the industry involved, who pays the wages of the released workers, and the number of students involved in each course. a 140 3 3 S â « 1 ! i .3P . I I I 11^ CL

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A number of things are evident from the Table.

These include the fact that the great predominance of

day release classes are for unions in the public sector;

that while there is a variety of unions involved, many

are not and involvement forms an almost haphazard pattern; while there is a fundamental similarity in the material

covered in each of the classes, there are significant areas

of variation in emphasis, and even more variation in the

length of time devoted to the various courses ; and the fact

that there is significant variation in the number of workers

from any particular industry involved in the program, a

variation which is not related to either the size of the

industry or the size of the union. Overall, one has the

impression of a program which is solidly grounded but not

yet institutionalized. To see why this is so, we must

turn to the history of the program.

The Day Release

Day release came to Sheffield University Extramurals

in 1952, partly because of an interest expressed in such a

program by Bert Wynn, President of the Derbyshire Area of the

National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Wynn was interested in

the notion of a longer-term course as a consequence of his

position as a left wing (Communist Party) leader in a hard-

pressed, rightward-drifting union. He felt that such a course

would encourage general political consciousness in the union

and would also serve as an alternative way for him to find out

what the union rank and file were thinking- 142

Tutors in Sheffield Extramurals were receptive to the idea of such courses for a number of reasons. One was a general political sympathy with Wynn's belief in the value of education in developing political consciousness. They also felt that working class education had suffered several recent setbacks.

In addition to the organizational difficulties consequent to the animosities between the WEA, the NCLC, and the CP, the wave of post-war pro-labor and pro-Labour enthusiasm had largely dissipated. This wave was being replaced by talk of embourgeoisement and the rise of Gaitskillite politics in the

Labour Party. Both of these trends stressed that the modern

British "mixed" economy had surmounted the old capitalist contradictions and that the working class was being slowly but surely incorporated into a broad national culture. The

WEA-university tutorial classes of the Tawney era were largely replaced by a WEA stress on more or less frankly "embourgeoisify- ing" courses concerning culture, art, and political history.

There was thus a vacuum of educational work oriented to the working class or having a contemporary political and social outlook; the tutors felt that a bold new venture in the Tawney tradition, but with new methods and under more auspicious conditions, was in order. The methods to be used should involve a more group- and student-oriented pedagogy, and the conditions should include the notion of release from work for education without loss of pay--that is, the principle of day release.

Because of a broad sharing of political perspectives, the courses were set up allowing tutor control of student selection 143 and syllabus; this was felt a necessity if the new pedagogy were to be applied correctly.

Two years after Derbyshire (1954), similar courses were set up in Yorkshire, although on a somewhat more limited scale

(a new group started every three years, rather than each year).

From the beginning, the day release program had relations with existing forms of adult education struggling to continue an orientation to the working class, such as the WEA in many of the pit villages around Sheffield. Relations with the NCLC were often difficult, however. The next major expansion came in the middle '60's, with courses being set up in the steel industry in the neighboring community of Rotherham and the more distant new town of Scunthorpe. These courses were unique both in that they represented an expansion of day release into the private sector^ and in that initiative for the courses came more from the shop floor (shop steward) organization of the steelworkers than from the leadership of their unions.

This expansion had been encouraged by the careful work of new members of the Extramural staff and the local WEA tutor/- organizer. All had received encouragement from and developed contacts through the local structure of the Sheffield District

Communist Party. The movement into steel was important as a rejection of a very different model of trade union educational work which had developed at Oxford University in the late '50's.

This model stressed short courses with more "training for roles" rather than a liberal education emphasis. Sheffield University

attempted to impose this model on the Extramural Department 144 through the firing of at least one tutor and the hiring of devotees of the Oxford approach, but the existing staff fought off this attempt; organizing the steel courses consolidated the victory of the "Sheffield model" in Sheffield. Shortly there­ after, courses were developed for engineering workers in nearby

Doncaster ; these, too, were in the private sector.

The University hierarchy was only one source of resistance to day release; others included the leadership of the Yorkshire miners, one of whose members warned in 1965 against an impending

"takeover" of the union by the bookish Sheffield "clerks" (ex­

day release students). Another source was the Yorkshire 2 Regional Education Officer (REG) of the TUG who, in regard to

the courses,expressed the opinion that "national economics is 3 not relevant to the training of shop stewards." In fact, an unholy alliance of the management of the new British Steel

Corporation (BSC), the local technical colleges, the TUC REG,

and the national leadership of several steel unions, gradually

forced the classes out of the Department of Extramural Studies

and into the techsi; this was accompanied by a significant change in the syllabus.^ In the engineering industry, a "tripartite

agreement" which included the local WEA, the local technical

college, and Extramurals has led to a sharing of the teaching

and the continued involvement of Extramurals. Although the

course continues, there has been a change in the firms from which students are drawn, most notably the withdrawal of

participation by the multinational International Harvester. 145

The loss of steel courses was offset by the organiza­ tion of new courses in the public sector in Sheffield with the

Fire Brigades Union (FBU), white collar local government officers

(NÀLGO), and with manual public service employees in Scunthorpe

(NUPE). For a brief time, courses were held with members of the semi-skilled Wire Drawers Union, but these have been dis­ continued. Recently organized courses in the rail industry, with participation of both craft and industrial unions, have continued, although these last just one year, rather than three. While a number of changes to be discussed in the last chapter of this section (such as the assertion of TUC hegemony over trade union education, and university re-organization) make the future of extramural day release somewhat uncertain, this brief summary of the program history has highlighted the variety of loci of the work and some of its controversial character.

Altogether between 2000 and 3000 students have taken part in the Sheffield day release courses.

Educational Principles of the Courses:

The courses are organized according to the following principles :

1. Day-long education at no loss of pay for the student, on works time.^

2. Widely selected student group (not just union officials) organized into single or related industry classes; students selected by tutors.

3. Classes approved under the joint auspices of unions and management.6

4. Academic control over the syllabus content through university tutors. 146

5. Liberal educational content of the highest quality, as opposed to role training.

6. Advanced adult education pedagogy as the basis of the course enabled by long courses.7

It is difficult, of course, to get a sense of what this program is like merely from such charts, historical summaries, and statements of principle. To convey”better a sense of what it is like, I will discuss something of the program's function­ ing under the headings of recruitment and selection, tutors, Q students, pedagogy, and content. This description will conclude with a discussion of two particular days of classes.

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Twenty years after he went on the Derbyshire NUM day release course, an ex-student told me how he was recruited:

I saw a sign on the canteen wall--I think I can remember the exact words : "Are you interested in economics and industrial relations? If so, you are invited to apply for time off work to attend a course being run by Sheffield University Depart­ ment of Extramural Studies and the NUM. " I thought it looked interesting, and besides you could pack it in if you didn't like it--just stop going. Besides, it was a day off work, out of that hole in the ground and in the sunshine and flowers.

Recruitment is generally aimed at the student's intellectual curiosity, with the added attraction of time off work. It is carried out in a low-key manner through the union structure.

And it is successful, with at least twice as many students q showing up to be interviewed as there are places available.

However, the first year on a new course is generally organized for elected union leadership, in order to gain their trust. 147

Thereafter, anyone can apply, and the large number of applicants necessitates a selection procedure.

The selection procedure followed by the miners' groups is designed to balance a number of priorities: the need (in the words of the director of the Yorkshire NUM course) "to spread 'success' by colleriery, occupation, and NCB area"; the pedagogical need to create a potentially cohesive group ; the desire to spread the benefits of education to those who in the past have benefited least; and the desire to insure a positive educational experience through rewarding motivation and intellectual potential. Through arguments not unlike those used during the campaigns for educational reform in the

Chinese cultural revolution, the resulting selection procedure was described as "group" rather than "individual" selection.

The conflicting implications of these priorities and the novelty of a "group selection" process justify a closer look. The miners' selection meetings take place at their union headquarters on a Saturday in the spring or summer before the fall term. At the ones I attended, the potential students appeared to be a bit nervous (Derbyshire slightly more than

Yorkshire), and one opening address by the Extramural tutor who is director of the course was among other things aimed at placating their worries :

This is an open meeting, and nobody should be nervous; you are not about to be tested. The stress in these meetings is on selecting a cohesive group ; you will not be tested individually. Anybody who is not selected for this class can apply again. No one who is persistent has ever been denied eventual entrance to the program. 148

Another tutor was then introduced who gave a short presentation on the purposes and methods of taking notes. He was followed

in turn by still another tutor giving a short lecture on a

topic which would likely be of interest to potential students,

although the material is also likely to be at least somewhat unfamiliar. (At the two selection meetings I attended, the

topics covered were "The future of the coal industry" and "The

pattern of trade union growth.") One of these presentations began like this:

My topic is "The pattern of trade union growth in Great Britain." Questions I am interested in include. Why this particular pattern? Why do we have the types of unions that we have? There are three points I want to make in trying to understand why we have these types. First, we want to understand the political attitudes that we have developed in the working class; second, we want to see what the other sections of the working class are like; and third, we want to see how the working class has related to other social classes.

The remainder of the talk was divided into a discussion of

trade union history and the contemporary types of unions.

Students were then given as much time as they needed to

recopy their notes; these were turned in to the director. The

next stage of the meeting involved splitting the students into

small groups of 8 or 9 for discussions with one or two tutors.

For about 20 minutes, students discussed with the tutors the

topics, "Is a Labour Government the 'best' government for

working people - if so why, if not why not?", and "Are wage

incentives the answer to the problems of the British coal

industry?" These were topics about which the students were

likely to be informed from personal experience and in which 149 they were likely to be interested. Tutors in the groups tried to generate a discussion and insure the opportunity for all those in the group to speak.

The tutors then went into the meeting room of the union executive committee for a final selection discussion. The director had already developed a small profile of the individual applicants and determined the number from each colliery, the proportion of craftsmen to face-workers, and those who had previously applied. He indicated those who he was sure should be on the course, and then he began a detailed discussion of each remaining applicant with the tutors, who had in front of them the notes taken by the students in the groups which they had led in discussion. The director brought up relevant additional information, such as involvement in informal miners' discussion groups or other educational activity. It was my impression as a participant in this process that students were positively evaluated for aggressiveness and verbal skills in discussion, and that their notes were evaluated positively if neat and literate. A final selection, bringing together the group criteria and the tutor evaluations, is made by the director at a later date. All in all, the process falls somewhere between Barratt Brown's characterization (1969) of it as "more of a class than an interview," and another tutor's sardonic observation that it is "like a civil service selection panel." 150

STUDENTS

There are basically two types of workers from which coal industry students are drawn— craftsmen and face workers.

The former apply for an apprenticeship upon leaving school and are selected by the NCB to learn a trade such as maintenance or fitting.Face workers also enter the mines at 15 or 16, but they go directly to semi-skilled work with little formal training. A basic problem for the day release program has been that applications for the course come disproportionately from craftsmen.The selection process described above tries to give some priority to the less skilled, though this tends to be counteracted by the advantage given to those already possessing some intellectual skills and who are therefore more likely to be craftsmen. One indication of how well a balance is maintained between craft and semi-skilled is the fact that of 126 respondents to a survey of previous students on the

Yorkshire course, almost half were face workers. Thus an important point to be understood about the students on the course is the existence of a range of academic skills roughly correlated to a range of work skills and training.

The second characteristic of the students is the seriousness with which they take the whole educational experience in general, and day release in particular. This seriousness is manifest in a number of different ways, from prompt and regular attendance and vigorous participation in discussion, to a pronounced belief in educational efficacy and high quality written work. One of the interesting manifestations 151 of this seriousness is in dress. Workers "dressed smart" for the classes, typically wearing what they might "when going out and about of a Satu'day evening." One tutor told me an interesting story about what happened on one occasion when his usual dress was varied in a flashy, less formal direction.

It provoked a number of comments, including the jocular enquiry of one student, "if the' had a new woman?" Students expect tutors to take education seriously, and they expect this attitude to be reflected in dress. Even the younger, more

"hippie"-identified miners rarely attended class without a 12 sport jacket to go with their jeans.

In terms of age, the students appeared to be mostly in their thirties or early forties, with decidedly smaller pro­ portions of younger and older workers. In the late '60's,

Michael Barratt Brown perceived a trend toward a lowering of the average age, but this lowering appears to have slowed or even ceased; certainly during 1976-77 the large majority of day release students were older than myself (30 years). This interesting phenomenon leads one to consider motivation for attending the courses. Discussions of motivation among my informants generally stressed two possibilities--on the one hand, an interest in participating more (and more effectively) in trade union and community activities, and on the other, a desire to get out of the industry through education.

Various elements of the course content and pedagogy (to be discussed momentarily) justify a belief that a day release course would improve one's ability to serve the interest of 152

the class; yet at the same time, the courses do provide a

definite "ladder" for one who would use education for personal

advancement. In his description of the early development of

the day release program, Barratt Brown comments on how the

program was seen as part of a larger, hierarchically-oriented

educational structure:

The special problems of educating industrial workers were becoming evident. There was an obvious gap in rovision between the residential courses (at Ruskih, Oleg Harlech, Avoncroft, and Newbattle Abbey) and gthe traditional evening class. The increasing adoption of shift working in industry made attendance at evening classes more difficult. At the same time, a change was occuring in the subjects covered by the WEA classes, as the enthusiasm of its largely non­ working class members moved away from the economic and political to the historical and cultural (1969: 1; emphasis added).

He and others justify the courses as a means of providing

educational service to the "educationally deprived." Debate was frequent both within and outside the program regarding

the extent to which the program encouraged individual "careerist"

or collective "working class" motivations. One tutor made the

following argument:

The working class has a right and should be taking leading parts in all aspects of society; it should not be kept in the ghetto of the working class movement. I'm pleased when I see the influence that trade unionists who've been on our courses have in local government, as senior councillors, in education and adult education, as social workers-- this seems to me something that the trade union movement should encourage.

Those worried about careerism, in contrast, would illuminate

their concern with apocryphal stories like the following,

which I heard several times : 153

A famous miners' leader invited his mate from a Yorkshire pit to stay with him for the duration of a national negotiation. After a session, they drove in the leader's chauffered limousine to his Westside London townhouse. As the butler opened the door into the spacious foyer, the Yorkshire collier exclaimed, "It's so bourgeois I" "Isn't it" beamed the bureaucrat. "You see, nothing's too good for the workers I"

This "misleader" is not the only one who has difficulty separating individual from group motivations. It is often because of their language, their poverty— in general their class--that young men enter working class occupations in the first place and don't experience individual advancement. Their desire to advance personally has a class dimension to it. One trade union student described his ambitions in the following terms :

When I was at school, I was ridiculed— for the patches on my knickers, and the words that I used. The teacher and the other students, they ridiculed me. I got out when I could.

But I still think I can do something for the working class through the trade union movement. I want to get ahead through the union, through union education.

Day release, through providing a link to credentialized, formal higher education (typically by preparing the way for a worker to attend one of the adult colleges, and thence on to university), can provide an outlet for such ambitions. The demographic profile of students on day release doesn't really help one decide which type of motivation— individual or group--is the most important.

This is because both a desire for a new job, to end the frustra­

tion of the old one, and a desire to become more communally

active, perhaps to assume one's rightful place in the local

social structure, are likely to occur at the same time. They 154 are alternate responses to the ending of the more time-consuming aspects of young family responsibilities, for example.

In sum, students on day release are either craftsmen, semi-skilled or unskilled, usually in their thirties, serious, and typically both individually and group motivated.

TUTORS With a staff of 15 full-time tutors and the ability to hire many additional part-time people, the Department of

Extramural Studies of the University of Sheffield carries out a program of classes in Industrial Studies, Community Studies, and more traditional University extension work, as well as providing support services for a variety of academic research activities. Half of the tutors teach predominantly in Industrial

Studies (the bulk of which work is in day release). These full­ time Industrial Studies tutors teach 2/3 of the day release classes, the rest being taught largely by lecturers from other

University of Sheffield Departments --notably politics and economics--who are quite eager to teach on the day release courses. Full-time Industrial Studies tutors are recruited

specifically for this work; at the same time they are expected

to (and generally do) carry out a personal program of academic research. Their appointments are to normal university lecturer­

ships, and include an academic evaluation (referred to as the

"utility bar") within some time (six to ten years) after

appointment. Appointments carry the possibility of being promoted to a senior lecturership (roughly equivalent to a

full professorship in the US system). 155

The eight full-time Industrial Studies tutors in the

Department during my field study were expected to perform rather demanding and specialized academic roles. Unique aspects of these roles, following from the pedagogical principles described above, include:

1) communicating a concrete knowledge of the functioning of trade unions and industrial relations, based on personal and research experience; 13 2) organizing additional Industrial Studies work;

3) developing group cohesion and individual self- confidence among "educationally deprived" industrial workers ; this is expected to include the development of personal relations with students during intense, 6 hour "classes;"

4) mastering and communicating a broad range of social science and professional subject matter, including politics, economics, philosophy, sociology, industrial relations, and management ;

5) willingness to "be educated" by students.

Despite the rather demanding aspects of the tutor's role, my survey of workers' education indicates that these positions are among those most sought after in the field. This is due both to the relative advantages of a university-level position and the specific qualities, opportunities, and reputa­ tion of the Sheffield work. One tutor expressed it's advantages in the following way:

It sure beats workin'! Seriously, I've got all the advantages of being a miner, except I don't have to work; I don't have to go "down t ' pit." Everything I've done in academic terms is better than workin', better than banging the clock, better than riding that wire rope every day. What I've done in academic terms is close to the mining community and origins. I spend my leisure time, you know, drinking and chewing the cud with miners. I enjoy the comrade­ ship— you don't have to pretend to be anything or do anything; you're taken for what you are. 156

Being in Extramural Industrial Studies means you can be there and still do something for the people in the community, which is very important ; it's the best of both worlds. It's important in that ; even though you et disgusted by this 'community of scholars'— you gave to sidle along a lot with your backside to the wall, for the record.

Several (though not all) of the tutors come from clearly working class backgrounds and had industrial experience before entering higher education as mature students. This has been an important criterion in their selection. The current directors of the miners' courses were themselves students on early day release classes. As might be imagined, the tutors are also politically active people, both by inclination and the necessity of engaging in organizing work as a part of their job. While there is a clear "center of gravity" of political attitude on the left wing of the Labour Party, there is a great diversity of political approaches within this group, and there are tutors with other political identifications as well.

Although regionalism is an important fact of British life for all classes and more especially for the working class, and despite the fact that developing a sense of common identity between tutor and student is an important part of day release pedagogy, where one grew up has apparently not been an overriding criterion in selecting tutors. Several come from the South

(Essex, London and Oxfordshire); those who come from the North are from Scotland, Lancashire, and West Yorkshire as well as

South Yorkshire and Derbyshire. They received degrees from universities like the London School of Economics, York University, and Hull University. The tutors are a stable group, with only 157 one new appointment in the ten years prior to the field period.

PEDAGOGY

For a variety of reasons, in day release the methods can be seen to determine the content more than the content the methods. It is in this sense that the program is a good example of the kind of "education across" approach to workers' education described in Chapter Four above. Consequently, I have decided to discuss pedagogy by first describing some of the main orienting concepts, then describing the methods based on these concepts, and finally describing the content communicated through the method:

Pedagogy: Orienting Concepts— a Dialectical Approach to Education

In my interviews with day release tutors, they clearly hesitated to include the day release program in the working class movement or to regard it as a direct contributor to the kinds of processes I call by the term "the reproduction of working class culture." Inevitably, this hesitation was connected to a view of the goals of the day release program as dualistic,— as having both a group and an individual focus. The dualistic character of the goals of the program is related to the dualistic character of student motives described above; it is expressed clearly in the comments of one tutor, who described the goals of day release in the following terms :

They are twofold, and not in any hierarchical relation­ ship . They are first of all, to help people either at work or in their voluntary or community organizations 158

to play a more active part in society and in the work of their organization, whether trade union, tenants' association, ox local political party; and secondly, really through; this; to enable the individual to develop the self-confidence both to do this and to pursue any other aims and objectives of self-development that they may wish. I don't see these as being necessarily in opposition, but occasionally they are in opposition. Sometimes people will come on a trade union course and end up pursuing a trade outside the one they started from.

In these comments it is clear that the individual self-realiza­ tion is dialectically related to action in groups--self-develop- ment is realized through more active participation in groups.

This is why, in a 1969 pamphlet evaluating the day release program, Barratt Brown can say about self-realization, "The aim of the courses is so largely directed to this end that it is on this... that the tutors would want to be judged " (p. 24); ÿet i a 1977 paper on trade union education in general and day release in particular, he comments, "The aim of these courses has always been primarily to help students to play a more effective role in their unions " (p. 105). Despite appearances, there is no necessary contradiction here, only a potential one.

Day release should contribute to the working class movement when, as a consequence of involvement in the courses, students become more active in working class organizations and the organizations thereby do a better job of accomplishing their goals. All of the tutors were personally committed to this process by being active in aspects of the working class movement beyond their teaching. In contrast, day release could also inhibit the movement, either by providing a "ladder" out of and away from the class for potential leadership, or by helping to 159 prepare the conditions for corruption and for the kind of working class "misleadership" alluded to in the "Nothing’s too good for the workers" story quoted above.

There is consequently a significant potential contradic­ tion in the goals of the program, a contradiction the perception of which prevents a simplistic inclusion of day release by its practitioners as a form of working class education. Consciousness of this contradiction pervades the pedological theory of the program, most clearly in the notion of "organic working class intellectuals" as an orienting concept to resolve the potential contradiction.

The concept was first articulated by Gramsci, in an essay entitled, "The Intellectuals" (1971:5ff.). The organic working class intellectual is both from the class and for the class; there is consequently no contradiction between his or her individual self-realization and the service of group interest. One tutor expressed the concept in this manner :

The lynchpin is the organic worker intellectual, in Gramsci's sense. This is someone with the capacity to engage as fully as anyone who has had professional training in discussion of economic and cultural matters while simultaneously relating them to his and his comrades' work experience. They apply scientific training to the right questions.

In day release, if one succeeds in contributing to the creation of working class intellectuals, the contradiction between individual self-advancement and service to the class remains merely potential and is thereby "resolved."

If one's aim is to develop worker intellectuals, a number of relatively commonplace educationists' terms take on 160 a different connotation. For example, one may talk of students as educationally deprived, and one likely has a genuine desire to make up for this deprivation. But, as one tutor put it,

"This is not merely a matter of making the present educational system available to those who missed it. The present system must be changed, for even those who are qualified are rejecting it in increasing proportions. It must be changed to bring those who missed it into the system by changing the system to serve their needs." In this regard, the day release tutors share with the radical reproductionists a critique of formalized education, a critique which recognizes it as a system of cultural hegemony : It doesn't just ignore the working class lad; it actively ridicules him. Through alienating working class students, credentialized education cuts the working class off from influencing education as well as from receiving its benefits proportionally.^^ These kinds of ideas provide the theoretical justification for the adoption of a pedagogy which stresses the need for education to be relevant to what the students think about as functioning members of society--as workers and citizens.

It is aimed at what one tutor described as "a true working class culture, one which cultivates the will and capacity to rule on the part of the working class."

It is the symbol of "working class intellectual" which governs the pedagogical field of day release. It is the notion toward which are oriented a number of educational terms, when used by extramural tutors, terms like educational deprivation, recurrent education, discovery learning, and most importantly. 161 liberal education. "Teaching how to think is more important than What to think," I was told by practically every tutor; they then went on to stress that, "how to think" is taught by discussing at length the topic about which workers in a particular industry have to think.

Pedagogy; Methods

While individual and group perspectives can be said to coexist within the perception of motivation and goals, in educational method the group orientation has a clear priority.

This is the case, I was told, for both practical and theoretical reasons. These justifications were both neatly summed in these comments by one of the present tutors :

The key to dealing with mixed ability groups like those on day release classes is to develop a corporate spirit; so that those who in other circumstances would not take education seriously are compelled to do so by their peers... There are really two kinds of self-discipline, the individual kind and the kind which develops where you have individuals strongly conscious of a connection between their individual progress in their studies and service to the class to which they are attached. This kind of self-discipline is an extremely strong motivator. This is why it is important to teach in single­ industry groups, for since the workers in them have a common experience, no one feels at a disadvantage.

The establishment and cultivation of a group consciousness is described here as the primary mechanism for developing a serious attitude toward educational work; group consciousness itself is at the same time an important part of overcoming the kind of educational underdevelopment described above. During the first several sessions of any day release class, a high priority is given to developing this particular kind of group 162 spirit. Tutors jealously guarded this period of time from any outside intrusion, including mine and each other's; they respected the delicacy of the educational dynamics of this period.

The thing I'm most heartened by about day release courses I've taught is the generalized free expression which develops, among people who often have no social relationships at all to speak of at work. Other than the ride in the cage, a miner in a modern coal mine may spend the whole day with literally no one around him. They don't often have a chance to relate to each other as humans, but they do in class. Here, they have to articulate human feelings arid needs. For example, they often have an over-anxiety toward the tutor. We have to build a laissez-faire environment so that they can develop as individuals, and get back against their work environment. The tutor?--"I'm just here ticking the register," you know. Get them to say and do what they want. This is when I feel I'm scoring something— when they feel human feelings, express their own feelings with an awareness of others' feelings--this is my contribution.

In essence, this method aims at reproducing on educational turf the social relations of the mining community described above by the former student, thereby building a group-motivated educative culture.

Teachers teach by creating educational environments, and the primary aspect of the educational environment which day release is trying to nurture is an educational culture oriented to the working class. The method is well informed by the critique of formalized education. By cutting the program off from credentializatiori, the tutors hope to minimize the individualistic kind of intellectual competitiveness which is so much a part of the motivational structure of formal education.

Not only should there be no reward for showing off personal 163 intelligence; there are to be sanctions against overstepping the bonds of vigorous discussion by turning to personal attack.

By keeping the students grouped by single industries, less time is needed to establish a sense of common group experience, and it is therefore easier to develop a relaxed and intimate ambience. In terms of in-class method, Barratt Brown expresses how the critique shapes what the tutor does: ". . . (T)he traditional lecture followed by questions has been almost entirely abandoned in favor of the seminar type of guided discussion, supported by other student activities, projects, and exercises*'(1969:12) . The wisdom of this approach was made clear to me very quickly ; I found my various presentations of the US labor movement in day release classes went best when based on a list of questions generated from the students at the beginning of the session. No tutor gets very far into a prepared lecture before being interrupted for clarification.

Some endure comments like, "'Ere, 'ere, that's not on; we're no' 'aving tha'", or "I'm too knackered from me bloody work down t'pit to 'ave you nattering on the 'ole bloody afternoon."

By choosing tutors with industrial experience, and often with working class backgrounds, the program enhances the process of student acceptance of the tutor's educational leader­ ship and the development of a sense of a group culture. As in the selection session speech described above, the tutors can and do speak as members of the working class, using phrases like "the political attitudes which we have developed in the working class"— ; at the same time, the tutors can function as 164 a concrete example of a working class intellectual. In sum, a number of steps are taken to insure that the possibilities of an intensive educational experience— three years, one day a week all day long, with the same students and the same tutor all year— have every chance to be realized.

A number of options are open to tutors to heighten the group consciousness. Various forms of group standard-setting are implemented, with conscious allusion to the classroom democracy model developed by the WEA. Group projects (from a simple analysis of the proportions of space allotted to various subjects in different daily papers to the extended project on pit talk described below) are carried out; these allow the tutor to take a facilitator role more naturally. A variety of video-tape materials are also used.

Depending upon talent and proclivity, humor can be a very effective way to overcome the internal contradictions within the group. (It was often used to "cut me down to size.")

The stories are often flexible and can be made pertinent to the occasion, as in the following:

The American visitor asked the trade unionist how things worked in his plant. 'Oh,' he said, ''ere we work on the wheel principle. The managing director is the 'ub, the charge 'ands are the spokes, and the workers are the rim, always running around the fastest.' 'Where does the union fit in?' 'Oh, that's the mushroom principle; keep us in the dark and feed us on shit !'

By giving me a role in the story, I am brought into the group,

but the impact of the story is to reinforce the group's

definition of the situation and the general state of things. 165

Much the same kind of effect is accomplished by one of the

ex-miner tutors who is often deliberately provocative to

students. Not only can he get away with it— " 'e's one

of U S ; he speaks our lingo"--; such provocativeness, like the

humor, is an intimate part of the working class community. Thus

both modes of classroom behavior serve to recreate the community

social relations.

The variability of the different groups of students and

the flexibility of method are among the more important reasons why the pedagogy requires tutor control of content and syllabus.

Accordingly, the printed syllabi frequently contain a disclaimer

that they are only general guides and that specific topics and

their order will be determined by the tutors and the students

together.

Pedagogy: Content

The term "liberal" was the one most frequently used

to describe course syllabuses. They were obviously inspired by

models like that of the London School of Economics (LSE) on

philosophy, politics, and economics. One tutor said that

"Burke, Marx, and Mill" were the three figures with which he

dealt in the main.

Several tutors stressed a concern to deal with "timeless"

concepts and problems; thus, a discussion of the closed shop

was cast in terms of philosophical attempts to distinguish

liberty from license. On the level of content, there is

therefore an apparent dialectic between the timeliness of the

students' workplace concerns as a focus of intellectual work 166 and the tltnielessness of the liberal intellectual endeavor. The tutor, if functioning as a working class intellectual himself, is in a position to resolve this contradiction through his practice, and to resolve it in a way which reinforces the student's appreciation of the group's collective intellectual skill. In other words, the liberal education is to be a demonstration of how the group can appropriate knowledge collectively.

The syllabus is also designed to resolve this timely/- timeless contradiction in developmental ways as well. One tutor pointed out how a technique used frequently in the first year is to discuss a certain trade union role (branch delegate or shop steward) and develop this role training into a dis­ cussion of a topic like democracy in unions and other organiza­ tions. The three year courses have a distinctly developmental progression in subject matter. I now include a long excerpt from Michael Barratt Brown's 1969 description of day release course syllabuses. In this description Barratt Brown provides a still largely applicable view of the topical dynamic of the day release courses; moreover, this is a good statement of a general dynamic which has become a typical pattern of develop­ ment in a variety of other forms of contemporary trade union education in Britain. He describes the content of the courses in the following terms :

The responsibility for syllabuses has always rested squarely on the tutors and the Sheffield Extramural Department. Management and unions, have been shown what was proposed but have deliberately held back from anything more than formal consultation. 167

although the TUG education department has tended to.make specific recommendations. The subject matter has been limited to subjects bearing fairly directly upon the study of industrial relations. The miners' courses have alwâys been billed as courses on 'Industrial relations and economic problems!, the steel workers' courses as courses on 'Trade unions and industrial relations in the steel industry'. The tutors are appointed as lecturers in their own subject (economics, politics or sociology) 'and industrial relations'. The choice of this central theme is determined as much by the interest of the students as by any expressed request of unions or management. Since the primary aim of the courses remains the general liberal one of helping men to develop their potential, to think for themselves and play a fuller part in society, the actual body of knowledge that is imparted is secondary. What matters is that a subject is treated in sufficient depth and seriousness for fundamental questions to be raised by the students, rather than that students are treated to a Cook's tour of many fields of knowledge, however brilliantly illuminated.

In fact, an inter-disciplinary approach has been adopted that has tried to combine sociological, economic and political analysis within a historical perspective. The first year's work and the preliminary classes have been concerned primarily with developing student skills in studying and communica­ tions in general and in committee procedure and debate. In this work the subject is primarily the union, its organisation and structure, an introduction to its history and to the procedure of consultation and conciliation. Controversial questions of union 1 democracy, individual rights, class and race relations are raised from the beginning, but the reaching of solutions is indicated as being the result only of much further study and discussion on the course and thereafter. The second year is designed to provide some body of knowledge of the history and economics of the firm and industry within the wider political, social and institutional setting of our economy. In the Derbyshire miners' courses, with two days a week available, the economics and economic history are separated from the political and social setting to suit different tutors' specialisations. In the third year this body of knowledge is built on to examine problems of planning and choice against an introductory survey of political, economic and social theories and their treatment of the concepts of freedom, equality and efficiency and the conflicts between them. Again, in the Derbyshire miners' 168

courses there is a separation of the study of economic and of political and social theories. The outline syllabus has always been a joint product of the whole team of tutors, on which individual tutors make their own individual variations. It is subject to annual review and revision (1969:12-13).

While no such formal review and revision occurred while

I was in the field, it was pointed out to me that more of the

economic content had been moved recently to the 2nd year of the

Yorkshire course to stimulate greater interest. In general

terms, however, the determination of levels of content, the method of going deeply into some aspects of a subject rather

than trying to cover all of them, and the relative emphasis on

industrial relations and wider approaches and problems was what

I experienced in day release classrooms.

One final comment on the political nature of course

content. One tutor approached this problem in the following

way:

I'm very keen to maintain the distinction between education and agitation— I insist that we do education and not agitation. We've got to insist that, not just to keep a job, but to develop the work free of interference in ways which in the future will have some sort of agitational payoff. It's no good if you have a situation where in the context of the 3 year course there is a stopping of the learning process, both from the extreme left and the extreme right. You've got to keep the confidence if the work is to be developed on a mass scale, for it's out of its development on a mass scale that one will produce new leaderships, produce new ideas, and so on, which will strengthen the agitational side of things.

This comment clearly identifies the political aspects of the

individual-group dialectic, while outlining the general

pedagogical approach to this issue: Maintaining this 169

educational/agitational distinction in proper balance is a key skill of the worker intellectual.

All in all, the pedagogy is unique, and has its own peculiar dangers. If not done properly, day release can turn

into a kind of self-congratulatory group therapy, all celebra­

tion and no critique. Another danger is that it can turn

into an exercise in various forms of personal ego-gratification

for the tutor. The political content, supposedly a stimulus to

curiosity and motivation, can in fact freeze the learning process. An intellectual appreciation of complexity can turn

into an excuse for doing nothing.

Before turning to my attempts to determine anthropolo­

gically what in fact is the case, it would be good to give as

concrete an impression as possible of what actually takes place

in day release classrooms. I have chosen to do this by describing

the general lines of classroom discussion on two actual class

days. By doing this, I hope to provide both a kind of general

ethnographic description and some illustrations of some of the

complex problems of perceiving the educational consequences of

day release; the consequences themselves are the topic of the next chapters. I have chosen these days, then, not for their

"representativeness" (this would be like asking for a representa­

tive day in Congress, or a representative performance of a play)

but because of certain special features of the days which I

will discuss later--this includes particularly what these days

show about the kinds of learning experiences one can presume to

take place in day release. 170

WHAT WORKERS DID ON TWO "RELEASED" DAYS:

Day One

The first day begins with the miners from a second year (economics) class stopping early to chat or discuss mutual problems over a "cuppa" of the ubiquitous tea lady's tea, in the basement wing of the blackened 19th Century Anglican

Church which the University of Sheffield chooses to provide to the Department of Extramural Studies as a teaching area.^^

The miners are dressed smartly, each proudly displaying his union badge on lapel or collar. They move to sit around a U- shape of tables at one end of a large room, each to the place he had established early in the term. (I have been told by someone whom I had met previously which seat was likely to be unoccupied that day.) The tutor enters the room in conversation with a student, and immediately begins to pass out copies of

The Voice.18 Several students are already reading papers, perhaps brought by their mates, such as The Collier (SWP), The

Miner (national newspaper of the NUM), and The Yorkshire Miner

(Yorkshire NUM); one was reading a copy of the South Yorkshire

County Councils monthly magazine, Contact.

The tutor stands behind a small desk at the top of the

U and announces that the topic for the day's discussion is "the question of the social wage" and its relation to the increased proportion of the National Product (NP) which was going to the government. He chalks the symbol "NP" on the board. He begins an historical discussion, as students open binders with the course materials in them and take out papers and pens. 171

Statistics indicating a steady increase in the proportion of

Gross National Product (GNP) \idiich is government spending

(from 10% in 1900 to 60% in the 1970’s) are written on the board. The point is made that if the government were following

a true Keynsian economic policy, there would be ups and downs

in this proportion, but there are only steady increases. The

question is. Why? One student suggests it is because unions

are stronger and demanding more public spending; another that

it is because of high unemployment compensation. The tutor wonders if it is inflation as well.

He goes on to point out that there definitely has been

a recent increase in government intervention : to save jobs in

depressed areas (e.g., Belfast and Clydeside); to invest for

nationalized industries ; for defense. He raises the question

of whether private capital may just be unable to maintain the

economic system. This thesis is illustrated with examples of

possible major internal weaknesses.

He then points out the interesting fact that while the

government pays for 60% of the GNP, it only employs 28% of

the workforce; therefore, more than half of the government's

money is going directly to industry and individuals outside

its control. "These are called transfer payments." "They're

taking the money off you and me, mate," a miner interjects, and

he is met with a chorus of "Yups" from his mates. The tutor

argues that it is the rundown of employment in the private

sector which has led to the need for a permanently increasing 172 government subsidy to the economy; this he calls a state of economic planning, and contrasts it to a planned economy:

In a planned economy, the government would coordinate its policies. In reality, we have a situation of high unemployment, but the state is investing in labour- saving technology and follows other strategies which heighten the unemployment problem. Why?

He reminds the group about its previous discussion of the causes of unemployment, how they had concluded that with the development of monopoly and the narrowing down of areas for profitable investment, competition is lessened and invest­ ment goes abroad. Necessary but unprofitable activities fall to the state--coal mining, steel, and even nuclear energy, with its high take-up costs and slow return. He also brings in the point made by a student earlier that trade unions have an effect on the proportion of National Product in the state sector, through their demands for the expansion of health, education, housing, and other public social services.

He then passes out a xeroxed sheet of statistics from the government's Department of Employment, "Incidence of Taxes and Benefits, UK, 1975." This document is used to demonstrate a remarkable stability in the proportion of income people pay

in taxes whatever their income, and how even the cash benefits of the lowest income group are 2/3's of the cash benefits of

the highest. "What does this tell us about how to look at

transfer payments?" He argues that they are essentially a

debt, something incurred by the government in order to finance

desired capital spending. The justification for borrowing rather than taxing at a higher rate was legitimate— to spread 173 the cost of benefits evenly over the years they are enjoyed.

The International Monetary Fund screams at this practice, however, blaming it for the economic decline, "because the borrowing requirement is too big."

Normally, the government borrows from savings, but people have cut down on saving; where does the government go to borrow for debt service then? A student half-jokingly suggests,

"the government," and everybody laughs. The tutor points out that inevitably the government must turn to industrialists and the individual rich for the large sums needed— "Let us call them capitalists"— and the student agrees. The government pays a rate of interest so high (10-13%) for these loans that the general interest rate is driven up— "This is one reason why the rent on a council house goes more to interest than to the value." The important point about the transfers is that the government is borrowing and paying interest through the nose. Another reason for such high rates is to convince multi­ national corporations to leave profits here rather than export them and cause further difficulty to the shakey pound.

The tutor then turns to the question of who pays for this situation, using this discussion as an occasion to introduce the distinction between progressive and regressive taxation.

The tax structure does have progressive aspects, but is it so progressive that people refuse to work, as the Tories argue?

"What about your mates?" In the ensuing discussion, the students work out the notion that most people complain about higher taxes but keep on working overtime anyway ; they have to make ends meet. 174

The tutor points out how we all set standards of living and then try to attain them; we react to a change in tax policies merely according to ^Aether or not it helps us individually to reach that standard. A student adds, "In other words, the average working class lad or lass will go along with any change which, is not clearly a cut in their personal standard, such as a cut in a service they personally use." It is more useful, the tutor concludes, to look at each change as a potential redistribution of the social wage. This is especially true when one realizes that the largest part of the social wage for the middle class is in the form of interest.

The students are then directed to a chapter in the

Trade Union Studies book published by the TUG and BBC which discusses the notion of a "fair sharing" of the National income.

Following a tea break, a lively discussion ensues regarding the concept of the social wage, how to calculate it, and how much of it really benefits the workers. One of them makes the point that typical salary calculations fail to include the perquisites or "perks" of managerial positions; therefore the social wage of the working class would have to be that much bigger to balance out income differences between classes.

Over the lunch break, the students adjourned to a local pub for beer, sandwiches, or pie and peas with Yorkshire relish; they sit in small groups which are self-selected, often on political grounds, early in the course. The afternoon discussion, which develops almost imperceptibly from lunchtime conversation, is particularly lively. The ale-inspired vociferousness is 175

deftly directed by the tutor toward the Implications of the morning's topics on the next Labour Party election manifesto.

What should the manifesto say about economic policy?

I think the manifesto of the Labour Party should point out how conservative policy is really a redistribution of income away from the workers, so the manifesto should...

(Interrupting) Just a minute, mate; this Labour government is the best conservative government Britain ever hadI

The interrupted speaker, the students, and the tutor all have

a big laugh. As the volume rises and more and more students

take part in the discussion, the tutor attempts to coordinate

rather than direct the discussion. He responds often and

positively to the points made: "That's a fair comment."

Students acknowledge this support by gesture, and they support 19 each other.

The conclusion of the discussion about the Labour Party,

one student argues, is the need for a policy of free collective

bargaining and a price freeze. Others oppose this policy because

it would surely bring down the Labour Government. The tutor

adds that such a policy would likely mean no investment and

that alternative sources of investment would have to be found

and developed before such a policy could be responsibly

implemented. He points out how this takes them out of the

realm of economic planning into the planned economy, the subject

of the next week's class. It is four o'clock, and the miners 176

’•escape the academic dungeon" for their car pool rides home in Zephers, Skodas, Avengers, and Wartburgs.

As any teacher will notice, such a narrative can do little more than attempt to give a flavor of thé class; it inevitably distorts the actual dynamics of discussion. None­ theless, one can see in the discussion aspects of "education up"— "What about your mates? Do they refuse overtime because it will put them in a higher tax bracket?"— "education down"

(introduction of government statistics, or concepts like GNP), and education across, as in the free-wheeling after-lunch discussion. What is also clear is the political nature of the discussion; issues such as defining the social wage and evaluating the effects of transfer payments are approached by attempting to identify the working class interest. The attempt heightens political diversity, at least in the short run, as much as uniformity of opinion.

Day Two

On this day, the tutor begins with a discussion of the

Employment Protection Act (EPA), a piece of job security legislation which had recently been passed by the House of

Commons. After describing it and its possible uses by workplace representatives, the tutor raises the question of whether the bundle of legislation of which the EPA is a part should be considered the "Third Trade Union Charter"— That is, as claimed by some trade union leaders, that the recent legislation is as important as that which made unions legal in the 19th Century 177

(First Charter) and the protective laws passed in the 1930 Vs

(The Second Charter). He supports his argument by recalling the experience of the students during the recent period

(1971-74) of the Industrial Relations Act (IRA), which he argues (and the students agree) was an attempt to impose an

American-style structure for legal intervention in industrial relations; he contrasts the recent legislation to the IRA.

(A student) But the EPA is also a government inter­ vention in industrial relations, isn't it?

(Tutor) Yes, but it is a legal intervention to help the unions, especially the weak ones, so it is fundamentally different from the IRA. To my way of thinking, the main problem is whether or not by accepting the goodies, like the EPA, the Health and Safety at Work Act, etc. , are we becoming immeshed in the system?

(Student) I think so— look at the worker directors on the boards; you end up having the union dominated by the bosses. There has to be another way forward for the working class movement, but I don't know what it is.

(Tutor) One of the reasons people in general ’ don't like such legislation is because they think it encourages scroungers.

(Student) It certainly does. They put this legislation through and there'll be lots more like at where me cousin works, you know, got 2 days' release for trainin' and three Council jobs; they do the odd shift every now and then just to rub elbows with the workers.

(Another student) Tell me something, if the bodies which this legislation is setting up are supposed to 'elp the workers, then 'ow come in the recent strike at Leylands, the ACAS^O didn't intervene to help the toolmakers?

(Tutor) But isn't the legislation the best that can be done, considering the economic and political circumstances, declining investment and such a 178

slim majority? It does set up machinery for challenging the employer in industrial tribunals and places certain obligations on him.

(Student) But look what has happened at the tribunals ; they all seem to go against the workers. Why don't the tribunals ever refer to the tacit shop floor agreements won by the workers? I think this is basically just fair weather legislation. It would be better to call it an Employers^ Charter.

(Tutor) So what's it to be? What's the trade union strategy for the next Party manifesto? Will the '3rd Charter' argument wash? I think it is plausible and probably necessary, but I take it this class sees it as unlikely. You've got to think about how the Labour Party has survived bad periods before. I think we would all agree that what the law says is not as important as how it is implemented. That's what we'll talk about after we go sit in on a tribunal next week.

In this class, the tutor had started out with a typical topic of much trade union training, the new legislation and its goals. After talking about the Act's provisions, a discussion developed about what it's effect would be and its importance, a discussion pointed by reference to the debate in the unions about Labour Party policy (which by their votes they largely control, or at least have the power of veto). Since each district Labour Party formulates its own election manifesto with regard to local issues, and elects delegates to the

National Party Conference to vote on party policy, students who participate in the unions and local parties actually have to make these kinds of decisions through their organization's discussion of them. They therefore need to discuss the issue which the tutor raised. The tutor also prodded them on by introducing a number of provocative questions, some critical and some supportive of national policy. Though he made his own 179 opinion clear, he acknowledged what was obvious, that the students didn't in general see it the way he did.

ON UNDERSTANDING EDUCATIONAL DYNAMICS

Educational experiences are extremely difficult to assess. While such ethnographic description is useful for conveying a sense of what goes on in day release classes, and especially how the pedagogy outlined above is actually implemented, trying to use such material to reach broader conclusions is filled with difficulties and dangers. For example: What about the question of whether actual examples of

"learning experiences" are identifiable in such descriptions?

More important, what is the importance of such learning? We could say, for example, that the student on the first day who first suggested that the government borrowed from itself, but then acknowledged that the lenders were probably best described as "capitalists," had obviously had his mind changed, or agreed to use his symbolic repertoire (language) differently. Does this mean he has learned something? If so, is what he learned important? Conversely, what about the student on the second day who described the recent laws as "fair weather legislation" and refused to call it a 3rd Trade Union Charter? Do we conclude that he has not had a learning experience, because he apparently holds the same opinion as he had? Is it not more

important, perhaps, that he can argue his feelings more clearly at his party and union branch meeting?

Another aspect of the problem of making in-class

learning experiences the primary evidence of impact is revealed 180 in the following interchange with a former day release student- turned- tut or :

(Question) Is the important thing about workers' education that there is a class-based view of society?

There are enormous dangers with that approach as well, that it will be just propaganda, equal to mere role training. You have to get away from simply rein­ forcing .their own experience and confirming them in their role; or having the tutor just express his own prejudices. Let me put it thé way it first happened to me on the day release course. My first contact with Marx and Marxism, I thought, 'Christ, I've got the key!' You know, it unlocked everything. Now, I don't know what happened, but you get the feeling that, 'I've made that enormous breakthrough; over that feeling of insignificance that you had in front of all that vast array of human knowledge.'

Such an experience is obviously helpful in building individual self-confidence. Are we justified in seeing such changes in individual consciousness as sure signs of the positive impact of the program? The former student went on:

The problem is, you get lots in the group who will think, 'Christ, this is it; I've got the answer. I don't have to think anymore. ' I was sure I knew every­ thing important about social change, until I studied it my third year at university, when things got more complicated.

You don't get over the problem by laying out the class line, but by preparing materials for self-discovery— study, develop ideas, subject them to critical analysis from the teacher and theoother students. You create situations in which there are really no answers, so they develop their own, but these are subjected to others' ideas as well— you're back in the liberal tradition.

Thus frequently, the tutor finds himself trying to create an educational environment which mitigates against the creation of a feeling of an educational breakthrough. 181

One must add finally the kind of Goffmanesque (1959) or Berremanesque (1962) understanding that great pressures exist on both tutor and student to maintain in the day release classroom the appearance of significant educational activity, whatever the actual facts. Tutors are strongly encouraged to act as if student's comments are insightful, etc.; put more charitably, they are encouraged to respond to those aspects of student contribution which are useful and helpful, while ignoring, within the group and as much as possible, those which aren't. Students, for their part, are involved in a process of practicing behavior based on self-confidence and self-assurance; there is an explicit recognition that the group's progress depends in part on their ability to be positively-oriented toward their mate's contributions. None of this should be taken as an assertion of a general difference between what people in day release classes feel and how they act, but rather to point to certain structural pressures which, in a somewhat systematic way, make the relationship of feelings and actions somewhat problematic.

The problem of assessing the impact of day release is obviously quite complicated, requiring knowledge of things 21 which happen outside of the classroom as well as inside it.

Teachers are aware of the complicated, even dialectical 22 character of teaching, and that students will often find themselves arguing a different position from the one they may have put forward in class when they find themselves in different circumstances, as, for example, among their peers. If the 182

learning experience is dialectical, a method which captures both in-and outside classroom effects must be developed if

this experience is to be assessed. The following chapters

record the results of my attempts to use participatory

techniques to develop such a method. NOTES

^The mines had been nationalized in 1947, whereas steel was not nationalized until 1967, after the courses had been set up. 2 In 1964, the TUG forced a merger of the WEA work in workers' education and the NCLC. This frequently resulted in the appointment of NCLC regional coordinators as TUC REO's, as in Sheffield. See Chapter Eleven for more on the TUC's role in worker education.

^Quoted in Moir (1976:67). Similarly, an official of one of the largest steel Wotkers' unions, the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, exclaimed that he would not have them "breeding militants in my union" (p. 31).

^Despite strong local union backing. Extramurals was finally dislodged from the steel courses in Scunthorpe in 1974. The immediate issue was a refusal by BSC management to work with a tutor (actually a WEA tutor/organizer teaching under Extramural auspices) with whom a number of students had developed a critique of new productivity proposals. This critique was interpreted as jeopardizing the investment of over % 500,000,000 in the Scunthorpe works since the 1967 nationalization, an investment which, it was claimed, made Scunthorpe the largest steel works in the world.

^This principle allows the participation of shift workers in courses. The phrase "on works time" means simply during working hours. Time off and wages are negotiated for by the unions in the normal industrial relations manner.

^In the mining industry there is joint responsibility for average wages.

^There are numerous implementational exceptions to these principles, such as the fact that NUPE students are selected by union officials ; that NALGO courses are rather more narrow in focus than the ideal ; and that the NUPE, ASLEF, NUR, and NALGO courses do not run the full three years. Tutors develop content in consultation with management and union, who of course are the ones negotiating for the courses and perhaps demanding them instead of something else. In general, however, the principles listed above are those to which the program is oriented; negotiations continue, for example, to expand the NUPE, NALGO, ASLEF, and NUR classes. Q Such a discussion inevitably leads to oversimplification, since each course is negotiated for separately and therefore is unique. In what follows, I have therefore tried to present what I understand is the preferred practice.

183 g For the 1978 Yorkshire miner's group, 111 miners originally expressed interest and 95 were interviewed for the 40 available places.

^®Such trades are easily transferred out of the mine. Many miners pointed out to me that the large number of crafts­ men leaving mining each year is one example of how the nationalized sector of the economy subsidizes the private sector ; they felt that mining apprenticeships are "the best there are." Competition for them is stiff.

^^This problem has been exacerbated by the rapid mechanization of coal mining in the past 25 years. 12 In this regard, the day release classes were more like a WEA evening class than the more informal atmosphere of a trade union week-long summer school. 13 The importance of this was recently underlined when one industrial tutor was promoted to a Senior Lecturership on the basis of his organizing work.

^^When I asked a burly fireman how a new, young tutor was doing on the day release course, he told me, "Oh he's learning rather quickly; we're makin' a good job of 'im."

^^Such stability is, of course, a general characteristic of British life, academic and non-academic employment, and residence.

^^I think that this means that students are "educationally underdeveloped" in manner similar to the way that the non­ white colonized world has been "economically underdeveloped." They are both locked into a social system which subordinates them as a group. See Frank (1967).

^^The area is shared with the laboratory of the Forensic Pathology Department, a branch of police medicine. 18 A trade union newspaper put out by Labour left­ wingers of roughly the same political vintage as the Institute for Workers' Control. 19 After another tea break, the tutor asks me to comment on the character of the social wage in the US ; he himself offers observations on the situation in Japan. I am quickly moved by question to the kinds of social policies carried out by US unions. Pointed clarifications and comments are frequently interjected, as well as personal questions. It was stimulating but exhausting. 185

20 The Government's Arbitration, Conciliation, and Advisory Service. 21 I would hazard that most teachers get very little actual "learning experience" reinforcement in a typical class; students are often past masters at hiding what they have or haven't learned, and examinations don't solve many aspects of this evaluation problem. 22 As opposed to the views of most curriculum planners and designers; See Andrews and Hakkeri (1977). CHAPTER SIX

ASSESSTNG THE CONSEQUENCES OF SHEFFIELD

DAY RELEASE; CONSCIOUSNESS

Assessing the consequences of any educational practice is a difficult process. There are particular aspects of day release which exacerbate the difficulties. Nonetheless, because of the importance of day release within contemporary British workers' education, and because of the unique features of the program's structure and pedagogy outlined in the previous chapter, such an assessment will be attempted. The first step will be to specify the assessment difficulties, followed by a survey of the kinds of data actually available for assessment.

The actual assessment material will be presented in terms of five topics; the last four of which will be dealt with in the following chapters :

1) the impact on students' consciousness and consciousnesses ;

2) the impact on students'abilities ;

3) the impact on students' activities;

4) the effect of the program on working class organiza­ tions, especially their unions ;

5) the effect of the program on the broader political, economic, and educational context, including the future.

186 187

Through summing these impacts in terms of those which support

and those which counter a working class perspective, I will

demonstrate how my conclusion, that the Sheffield day release program manifests a working class perspective, was reached.

SPECIFIC DIFFICULTIES IN ASSESSING DAY mEASE'

To begin with, the kinds of qualitative and numerical

assessment of individual performance which are a normal part of

formal education are not available in this program--there are no grades, examinations, or other formal processes of credentializing. This is of course precisely what makes the program an example of informal--that is, non-credentialized—

education. For this reason, were such numerical and qualitative

data to exist, their relevance to assessing the program would be problematic in the extreme, since, in this sense, the program is deliberately and even militantly anti-credential.

Despite occasional references to individual self-pacing, the program is more oriented to group gelling or what we might

call "group self-pacing," so even the relevance of the

correlation between individual objectives and accomplishments

is of somewhat less than paramount importance. Similarly,

even the question of whether or not the group completes the

initial syllabus is of uncertain relevance, since the pedagogy

stresses the value of flexibility and group involvement in

forming class tasks. From this point of view, deviation from

the syllabus is prima facie no more or less relevant for 188 evaluating educational practice than strict adherence to it.

In assessing day release, it becomes evident that the problem of the relationship of goals to impacts is even more complicated in non-credentialized education than it is in the evaluation of credentialized education.^

Added to these difficulties is the fact of recent significant changes in the context of day release trade union education, such as the development of a national TUC educational scheme described in Chapter Eleven following. This particular development is in some aspects both a source of external pressure on day release and a consequence of day release.

These changes interact with significant differences among the classes, some of which are revealed on the chart in the previous chapter, such as the more narrow focus of NALGO classes compared to NUM classes. Further, there are likely significant con­ sequences of the different social backgrounds of the students ; one tutor argued that as a consequence of their cultural background, miners are more ready to take up general questions than other workers, for example. Another factor, actually a consideration in all participatory approaches, is the extent to which one's personality— one's own teaching strategies, interests in the material, and differences between one's cultural back­ ground and that of the students— interfere with perceptions of program consequences. This problem must be seen within the context of a research methodology which, as outlined in

Chapter Four, stressed the necessity of defining participation 189

to mean active involvement in organizing and political argu­ ment at as high a level as possible.

Anticipating some of these difficulties, the original

field proposal included the development of evaluative criteria

for the program collectively with my informants ; this procedure was carried over into the mini-projects developed after several months in the field as a mechanism to focus the work. The

interviews which were carried out with tutors in day release had this as one of their goals, leading ultimately to a more

formal evaluation (Hakken 1975).

However, several field experiences convinced me to

abandon this procedure. First, although I had mentioned my

interest in stimulating some sort of group development of

assessment dimensions, and some tutors had responded positively,

I got a number of clues that such a procedure would enjoy

little enthusiastic involvement. Such clues were that the

topic was avoided in conversation, or that meetings to discuss

it would simply not take place, and no one was bothered. I

noticed that tutors asserted the existence of a collectively-

understood sense of the goals of the program, but they avoided

attempting to articulate these in group contexts. I wondered

about the relative absence of staff meetings, until a meeting

late in the field study revealed openly some deep and long-

suspected personal and educational rifts within the group.

My participation in the education movement helped me see that

a number of procedural matters had to be worked out before a 190

collective attempt at developing evaluative criteria would

likely be successful. There were, moreover, significant past

and concurrent attempts at evaluating the program; these were both available to me to use and lessened the need for my own work to concentrate on this method.

I resolved on the expedient of developing criteria on my own, drawing them from my interviews. I first developed a

list of all criteria used and implied by my informants, and I

then tried to cut down the list of 130 or so items through

grouping and summarizing them. This was not possible, however;

the criteria were too contradictory and made each other too

often mutually irrelevant. In fact, I could only introduce

significant order into the criteria when they were organized

according to various strategic notions regarding the way forward

for the working class: i.e., helping individuals advance?

building stronger unions? building a broad working class

movement ? reforming the social structure gradually? speeding

the incorporation of workers into the dominant culture? While

this mode of organization gave order to the criteria, the high

degree of mutual exclusivity among the strategic principles

only compounded the problem of carrying out a formal assessment,

and I abandoned the attempt to develop a meaningful set of emic

criteria independent of political perception without a more

collective effort. It should nonetheless be noted that

discovery of such diversity in basic posture among the tutors

was itself meaningful data. 191

Assessment of the program thus depended more exclusively on the dialectic research method outlined in Chapter Four : that is, a method which stressed the development of a model of the consequences of a program based on the interplay between participation in the program, on the one hand, and participa­ tion in the broader movement on the other. In other words, what could I find out about the consequences of day release from my involvement in as broad a range as possible of workers' education activity and as active involvement as possible in the

Sheffield working class movement? There was even difficulty here, since so few of the classes in day release have been held among workers whose primary movement involvement would be in Sheffield itself, as opposed to the surrounding towns and villages. Though realization of this problem modified my activities a bit to include more activities in Rotherham,

Doncaster, Chesterfield and Scunthorpe, it is still the case that the problem of assessing Sheffield day release provides a real test of the value of the kind of participative method used to study this particular complex society. Though I feel the materials available warrant the conclusion reached, others may have other judgements.

Data Available on the Impact of Day Release

The purpose of the following is to balance somewhat the previous account of the difficulties in studying day release with an account of the broad range of materials which were nonetheless available to me. The purpose of gathering 192

these materials in the field, it must be remembered, was to enable me to develop an increasingly-sophisticated model of the functioning of the day release program. They were therefore used both during the field period to develop a model of the place of day release in the system of workers' education and reflectively after the field period in more formal analysis.

In no particular order of importance, they include

1. extended interviews with tutors, like those quoted in the preceding chapter, which touched on a variety of aspects of the day release program and which were extremely suggestive of the kinds of events in which the program's impact could be seen; as a consequence of the pedagogy described in the previous chapter the tutors are a central source of detailed data about the program's long-term effects.

2. useful seIf-evaluative material, such as MacFarlane's survey of mining students previously referred to (19- 75) and the pamphlet by Barratt Brown attempting to evaluate the program in 1969; these provide both a certain statistical base and a point of view on the program from a particular time period; other self- evaluative materials were generated in the "normal" functioning of the program, as in discussions of organizing initiatives within staff meetings ;

3. participation in both the educational and political aspects of the working class movement, in Sheffield and its environs ; this led, among other things, to a general view of the reputation of the program, an understanding of union and employer attitudes toward it, both official and unofficial, and most importantly, an idea of the impacts of the program at a practical level, as described in the example of the Science for People - WEA class, in Chapter Five;

4. historical materials from the program, both written and oral;

5. informal study of stUdent and tutor attitudes and actions, through conversations over tea and beer; participation in student activities; and participa­ tion in the network of tutor and student educational, social, and political activities not directly related to the program; 193

6. the classroom ethnography used above, which eventually involved a systematic study of over 13 full-day classes in addition to smaller segments of other classes ;

7. participation in the normal functioning of the Department of Extramural Studies and the day release program^ including having tea with the Professor, Administrâtive Aide, and office staff; attending staff meetings and social activities; working from an office in the Depart­ ment ; and having numerous conversations of varying lengths and intensities regarding the program's effects;

8. a number of evaluative studies of day release, parti- cuiarly at Sheffield, written as theses by former day release students while at Ruskin College, Oxford;

9. coverage of the program ^ the local and national mass media, which, among other things, gave additional insight into the views of government officals and management ;

10. finally, and perhaps most uniquely, the experience of testing my understanding of the day release program through using my model of the program as the basis for organizing within the workers' education movement. Specifically, my developing model of a working class perspective in the day release program was tested through its inclusion as part of the theoretical basis for developing a Sheffield Workers' Education Group (WEG) while in the field. This group has continued to function since I left the field.

AREAS OF PROGRAM IMPACT

Student Consciousness and Consciousnesses

The problem of consciousness has been raised in two ways previously in this dissertation. In Chapter Two, an attempt was made to distinguish between class consciousness as a

social force revealed in social action and individual conscious­

ness of class as a phenomenon related in a complex manner

to class consciousness. The argument was made that it was the

phenomenon of class consciousness which was generally of

primary concern for working class culture. However, in 194

Chapter Three, it was argued that the status of working class

culture as subordinate to another hegemonic cultural system

(capitalism) had significant implications for its reproduction;

specifically, it was hypothesized that, since the fabric of

daily life could not be relied upon to reproduce the distinctive

class culture, particular steps to "raise working class

consciousness"--that is, to make class culture the specific

content of conscious symboling— would likely be a necessary part of this reproduction. Therefore, despite the general priority of class consciousness, there is good specific reason

for concern over the way in which individuals and collectives

symbolize working class culture ; in other words, for a concern with both their consciousness as a group and individual

consciousnesses.

It is within this ideological field that the question

of the effects of day release on student consciousness must be

approached. While the general question of the effect of the

program on class consciousness will be answered in terms of

class activity— i.e., the course of the working class movement—

there is still some room to ask what evidence there is concern­

ing the program's impact on the way student's symbolize and

how they feel about the experience of being on day release.

At various points, some sort of survey of day release

students was contemplated as a method for obtaining data on

symbolic practice. Such a survey would have been extremely

difficult. For example, a mail study of a group of Sheffield 195 shop stewards carried out by a university department, with full cooperation and endorsement by the union, and after years of cooperative work on various projects, still barely reached a

20% return level. As an American "outsider," with untested politics and a tangential relationship to the local movement at best, any mail study, had I been able to finance it, would likely not have fared any better. Some survey of present students, distributed through the classes which I attended, might have been a possibility, but its utility would have been doubtful. As pointed out above, students presently on the course have a strong interest in maintaining a consciousness of educational relevance; certainly, the comments about the quality of the course by the many students with whom I talked informally were almost universally positive. Negative comments came only from the left, from those who had expected more and were prepared for more as a consequence of independent (for example,

CP) political education. (I return to their comments below.)

In terms of assessing present student attitudes, I trusted my experience in classes, my informal conversations with students over breaks and pub lunches and my encounters with them on other social, political, and educational occasions. I was also guided by tutor's opinions that past students were in a better position to evaluate the experience objectively.

In fact, the question of assessing student attitudes in regard to a three year course is really a longitudinal one.

One needs a "before" and "after" kind of measuring device ; this 196 is precisely what a field study is not in a position to offer directly. Moreover, one of my concerns was to develop a sense of how frequently one would encounter worker-students within the "normal" course of the working class movement, as a measure of the extent to which participation in programs like day release increase one's involvement in such activities. Main­ taining this sense could not have remained a priority if I had also set my sights on trying to meet any randomly-predetermin­ ed group of former students. While I think there could be some value in a properly-constructed longitudinal study of student attitudes toward the day release course, the general ethnographic character of the methodology chosen precluded any significant attempt in this direction. In other words, in terms of attitudes, I remained satisfied with the "bunch" of informants with whom I interacted as a consequence of my workers' education and working class movement activities.

Establishing a "Base Line" of Student Consciousness— the Ordinary Working Class Lad and Lass

The data available to me can still be approached usefully, although from outside the survey model; it can provide

some interesting hypotheses regarding the effects of day release on students' consciousness. This alternative approach stresses utilization of an emically-derived model of "typical" working class consciousness, and then it compares this model system­ atically with students and tutors comments and actions regarding changes in students' lives as a consequence of the

course. The hypotheses to explain the relationships observed 197 will then be compared to the data on student abilities and actions, and the more general effects of the program on unions and the broader political economic context to follow. In this manner, an attempt is made to interject a longitudinal perspective, as it were, "by proxy."

My attempts to establish a "base line" student con­ sciousness are informed by two general considerations. The first concerns the wide use of a particular emic construct, that of the "ordinary" or "average working class lad and lass."

The consciousness of this symbolized actor was a frequent focus of attention by students and tutors in day release classes, and in a variety of political contexts outside them. While

"t' lad on t'shop floor" is clearly a mythical character, to whom all kinds of contradictory consciousnesses were ascribed, it is also the case that models of his consciousness were an important part of a variety of organizing strategies— there is, in other words, an important connection between the emic models and the real world, through the mediation of practice.

By accepting the fact that this ascribed consciousness will likely be contradictory— i.e., not expecting the model to have Geertzian "coherence"--a description of some of the aspects of this semi-shared model is made possible, and it will provide one "fix" on a base-line consciousness.

Such à model is an abstraction and a simplification in several ways, but this does not necessarily disqualify it as a beginning point. As outlined above, however, the model 198 has an important flaw; it does not allow enough scope for any

of the feedback effects of the day release program on local working class. These feedback effects were claimed to be

considerable, particularly in the mining classes where the

courses have been running for a long time. It would therefore be useful to modify in some way the emic model of the "ordinary

lad on t ' shop floor" to reflect this change. I will use some

of the comments made by potential day release mining students

at a selection meeting for this purpose.

What Does "t* Ordinary Lad on t ' Shop Floor" Think?

The trade unionist interested in industrial relations

recognizes early on how the state of mind of his fellow union members has a significant effect on what they as a group can

and can’t accomplish. One of the stickiest problems, to which

students on day release returned again and again, is how to

overcome the limitations of what was sometimes called "bloody- minded militancy" among workers, a posture which underlies many of both the strengths and weaknesses of the British working

class. This consciousness was once described in the following

terms :

It's us and them! It's always been us and them; recognize that. We don't like what goes on at shop floor, but legislation's done nought for us, can't do nought for us. What can we do about it?

This was described by a tutor as "negative class consciousness,"

and students agreed that there was little creative about it.

Workers with this consciousness could be highly militant on 199

specific issues, and they relished training in simple skills

to develop grass roots militancy ; they were held to be

enthusiastic, for example, about swapping experiences with regard to fighting redundancies on the shop floor level. But

if one were to suggest approaching things on a higher or political level, their response was held to be typically

something like, "We can't bloody do anything like that."

The "bloody-minded militant" is interesting as a

cultural category because he or she stands in the middle of a

general typology of workers. This typology was expressed by a woman concerned with trade union education for women in the

following way:

There are three groups of workers. One kind is those who don't even know who their union is--they can't be bothered about politics or things political. The second are those who see themselves as non-political but know what the issues are and are ready to join in a fight if necessary. The third are the really political ones.

I think that the "bloody-minded militant"corresponds to the

second group of workers. For the shop steward, he or she is an

advantage over the first group, which "cant' be bothered" but

he or she is unwilling to make the effort to develop a broader,

political view of the issues, The "ordinary lad on the shop

floor" is fatalistic about the strongly perceived injustice of

his situation; the "average lass" fluctuates between periods of militant resistance and smoldering quiescence.

Extramural tutors generalize about this situation by

distinguishing between two types of class consciousness; the 200 dichotomous view, or "them and us," and the hegemonic class consciousness, or the will and capacity to rule, to transform the contradiction between them and us. What students would call, "developing a political approach," tutors would refer to as "developing hegemonic class consciousness/' drawing again on the Gramscian language. Tutors theorized about the reasons for the typicality of the dichotomous rather than the hegemonic, using the term "apartheid" to refer to the social situation in which British workers found themselves at the beginning of the . Bitterness and resentment against the continuing consequences of this historical situation were frequently manifest in my more intimate conversa­ tions with workers, and they formed a regular theme of student expression in Extramural work. One student wrote the following in a first year essay on his life and background:

Dotted about the landscape, like black mountains thrust out of the earth, are the slag heaps of the Barnsley coalfield, monuments to over a hundred years of coalmining in the area. To the thousands of mining families who have lived and died on the coal it produced, one generation after the other like an unbroken chain stretching through history. Monuments to unbelievable hardship and deprivation. Monuments to a history of struggle against nature, against owners, and against governments...

On another occasion, a white collar worker of about 40 who described himself as "a typical working class lad" described at great length the way in which his middle class supervisor had manipulated the class difference between them:

I never quite understood when I was to call him, "Mr. so-and-so,"and when it was time for first 201

names. It seems that the rules changed all the time. That's the thing about the middle class— they always pussy-foot around, never quite letting you know where you are, but making you uncomfortable. I never did like the annual party at my super's house; his wife would just keep making off remarks about smoking cigarettes, about strange ordors in the house. I finally said once, "Look, tell me if you want me to stay in here or go outside to smoke."

Workers recounted with particular relish incidents like these, when one way or another they had broken through middle class cultural definitions of situations and in some manner tried to give them a working class twist or cultural content. For example, a favorite story going 'round the pits after the 1972 miners' strike victory was "the one about the miner who married a commoner." This dialectical but positive affirmation of working class culture was rooted in, and often perceived as a consequence of, the experience of working people in the

British capitalist economy. The student paper quoted above ends with a section which expresses it well:

Let me here explain that the bitterness I feel about the whole system which degraded our forefathers had its positive side. The system produced something very unique and very wonderful in human terms, a humour, a warmth, a comradeship, a special relationship. in fact a community. A relationship that is easier to feel than to write about. This relationship grew up not in spite of but because of the poverty. The close proximity in which families were herded in their back to back slums, produced a close identification with each other. In hard times poverty was shared by each and everyone in the community. The very slums in which families existed produced its own kind of humour. Streets and estates in (my village) acquired nicknames which became their meaiRs of identification. Silly Row and Monkey Park are two that spring to mind. The names are self explanatory, but the families who occupied these dwellings, far from feeling degraded 202

by the derogatory labels bestowed on them, were fiercely proud of their small community within the community....Far from wanting the middle class utopia of a detached house with a nice lawn and a privet hedge clearly defining the boundaries of their little kingdom, the miners wanted allotments and pigeon lofts not activities that isolated them, but things that brought them together...

In sum, a number of characteristics were attributed to the "world view" of the "typical lad on t ' shop floor." Growing out of a consciousness of historical experience is a dichotomous world view, which involves an affirmation of which is the dis­ tinctive creation of the working class— the social relations of community— and bitterness toward what is perceived as typically middle class. This orientation is implemented in cultural terms; that is, people perceived as workers— " 'e's one of us ;

’e speaks our lingo"--are accepted and treated as one of the group, while those perceived as middle class are treated with suspicion--"You know why they planted all those trees out in

Dore, (a village on the edge of Sheffield) don't you? So they don't have to look at the workers." One tutor referred to the cultural conceptualizations underlying such perceptions as a

"communal intuition;" its existence, and particularly its implementation in cultural terms, is central to the day release experience. It is the basis of the group cohesion which is the central element of pedagogical method; its development, alteration, and consequences are the primary concern of students as they consider what to do about "the lads in t ' pit;" and it can be a powerful obstacle to both the individual and group goals defined by day release. Class contradictions structure 203

and are structured into day release; as one tutor expressed it, while ruminating over the staff difficulties described in a later chapter, "You don't abandon class at the classroom door."

This preconsciousness or perceptual culture of "the typical working class lad or lass" has significant ramifica­ tions in a variety of areas, some of which encourage and some of which inhibit the reproduction of working class culture, or the progress of the working class movement. Since a straight­ forward recounting of these characteristics from any particular single point of view can lead to the kinds of distortions of working class culture for which Hoggart is criticized above, one is perhaps on firmer ground in trying to identify the various propensities attributed to "typical working class people;" that is, the characteristic properties assigned to a cultural construct. The following attributes, drawn from discussions generated in the day release program, are, despite their inconsistency, a useful reflection of the emic reality of the class. Variously, the typical working class person was described as :

1. conservative "with a small 'c'"; that is, not likely a member of the Conservative Party, but staid and stable in habits etc. A story was once used to illustrate this tenacity of behavior. This concerned a working class lad and his father who, despite the fact that they lived in the same street of a pit vill%e, did not speak to each other for over 50 years. This was because the father had scabbed on the general strike in 1926. 204

2. critical of people who appear to occupy middle class roles or who are not a part of everyday experience. A rough questioning of a trade union official by a day release class was interrupted when a tutor asked, "Anybody got any nice, non-hostile questions?"

3. anti-intellectual and suspicious of subtlety of thought. The preferred shop steward is "straight" and "speaks our lingo ;" trade union leaders castigate "Trotskyist bootboys" for their "airy-fairy theorizing."

4. susceptible to those who manipulate working class symbolism, as when cabinet ministers start off speeches to trade unionists with references to the local football side, or when industrial relations operatives greet worker with the typically working class, "All right?"

5. disinterested in personal advance and reluctant to put themselves forward for a variety of positions in trade union and civic situations;

6. politically suspicious of the new and untried; of the "Bolshi" idea;

7. hostile to education and intellectual pursuits in general— "One problem with working class people is that they don't like to read";

8. earnestly, serious about education and intellectual skills. Numerous references were made to the "worker who laced his talk with quotations from Shakespeare" and "who knew the best of bourgeois culture." The absence of "the great working class orators of the past" was bemoaned, while a specific speaker might be praised as "a great working class orator."

9. willing to stand outside the common prejudice, especially if from a strong, close community, such as the pit village. In a television play on "The Price of Coal," the pit manager suggests as chair of a joint consultative committee that he would appreciate a motion to "cancel the agenda" in order to discuss the impending visit of Prince Charles to the pit. The trade union leader pipes in, "I move we cancel t' visit."

10. closed, solidary, and secretive, as a consequence of coming from strong, closed communities like pit villages. A day release tutor was worried that 205

publication of students' writing would be a violation of this secretivehess. Another described it as a "stockade" mentality, an inability to generalize away from the concrete. He cited the student paper which claimed that class was no longer important, because when he sees the pit manager at the supermarket, "He says, 'hello Alf,' and I say, 'All right, Bill?'."

11. intensely proud of their class, as in the story of "the miner who married a commoner," or the miners sense of their job as performing a vital social service in addition to being a means of livelihood.

The concern here is not with the accuracy of the emic model of working class people, nor with the usefulness of the model for the kinds of organizing and political questions which students on day release use it to approach. (Nonetheless, because it is drawn from a relatively "naturalistic" context, the model of working class consciousness presented here has much to recommend it over the typical survey-derived model.)

Rather, the intent is to give some baseline against which the effects of day release as a consciousness-changing process can be assessed. One needs to know what proportion of the students

embarking on day release share the consciousnesses described

above. How many of them "can't be bothered," are "bloody- minded militants," or are "political"?

At the Yorkshire NUM selection meeting described above,

the topics covered in small discussion groups with students

included "Is a Labour government the 'best' government for working people?" The following comments by prospective students were noted by me in my attempt to assess them for purposes of

course selection: 206

1. "Is the purpose of this question to find out our political leanings?" "In this capitalist society, we don't really have a Labour Government, because the capitalists are running it, the IMF. Nationalizing mining just maintained the same capitalist system."

2. "I don't have any particular creed, I just read the papers, but the question presumes the continuation of capitalism, and on this pre­ sumption, I would say 'yes,' it is the best govern­ ment for working people. The point is, there must be a radical change in society before you bring in nationalization; otherwise, nationalization is just for the benefit of the capitalists."

3. "I think that you have to give policies the time to work. The Left in t ' Labour Party keeps making impossible conditions."

4. "But nationalization means nought as far as I can tell."

5. "It's a bigger topic than just nationalization. Defense spending takes 32% of the budget; it's a whole question of priorities. Sometimes I wonder, do people really vote for policies or do just what they've done in the past?"

6. "They talk a lot about cuttin' back and savin', but there's still all that money passin' behind the back. And besides, a lot of it is false savin'; I can see that at my pit when they give you inferior tools so the job takes twice as long. I work hard for my living ; I can't see where its going to end, though."

7. "There is a Labour Government in power now, but we still have all these troubles. I think a coalition of all the parties is what we need in the government now; to get all the best brains working together."

With regard to the question, "Are wage incentives the answer to the problems of the British coal industry?" the following points were raised by a different group of applicants : 207

1. "In my opinion, the present wage differentials between mining and other work are just not great enough to get the labor to the coal face."

2. "We have to fight against any incentive scheme, for with us all on the same rate, we have solidarity. We can fight like we are for early retirement. With an incentive scheme, pits with large reserves would squander the coal rather than mining it carefully."

3. "I don't know; there's got to be some incentive to get the labor, back, but incentives woiild defeat many of the improvements in conditions, like health and safety, that the workers have won. Incentives would cause trouble among the lads, for face workers would get more."

4. "Incentives would mean that workers would cut corners; they've tried it in the past, and it's always failed."

5. "We had the contract system in the past; to bring that back again is just not on."

6. "The biggest incentive would be to raise wages throughout the industry. They've already tried productivity incentivies and other incentives, and they've all failed."

7. "I still think the new differentials are not large enough."

8. "I think it is the worker's basic wage which is the incentive. The first incentive scheme usually works, but after that there's no real planning and extra effort comes to nought."

The comments reflect a diversity of opinion, although the majority appear to support the policy articulated by the

Yorkshire NUM leadership. The comments also reflect some of the characteristics of "the average working class lad" described above, such as the suspicion of academic questions and the stress on the importance of solidarity. In the discussion, the positions the men put forward were thoughtful and knowledgeable, not the approach of those who "can't be bothered." If the 208

"lads on t ' shop floor" fluctuate between "not being bothered" and occasional unthinking militancy, this description does not seem to fit the applying students. I think it's better to see them as activists who want to be able to take a more knowledgeable, politically-informed approach to their work; this is the reason for their participation in the course. Their comments about the average working class lad or lass are often comments about themselves, or rather comments about how they perceive themselves to have been in the past. Considering the selective pressures, which inclines toward those with demonstrated high motivation for education and/or demonstrated language skills, it is safe to conclude that day release students are not "typical" either in terms of fitting the emic model of "the average working class lad" or whatever etic criteria might be reasonably chosen. They are on the course, one might say, out of a desire to move from bloody-minded (i.e., uninformed) militancy to politically astute practice.

Effects of the Program on Worker Consciousness

Having used the above to establish a base line, we move to consideration of the evidence available regarding the effects of the course on worker consciousness. Given the difficulties of ascertaining consciousness which have been confronted above, it is necessary to approach this consideration tentatively, seeing it more as an exercise in hypothesis generation than hypothesis proof.

In terms of specific limitations, it was argued that, while specific "learning experiences" could be identified in the 209

field data collected through classroom ethnography, they were not necessarily a good basis for assessing the actual educa­

tional effects of the program. While it's true that the

intensity of student participation in the classes which I

studied was among the highest in my experience, it was the

overall impact of such experiences, rather than their density, which is the focus of most interest. Michael Barratt Brown,

for example, refers to a "sea change" in students over the 3 years which no tutor or student experiencing it would have any

doubt about.

While Barratt Brown is correct in pointing out how it

is tutors and students who are in the best position to notice

any sea change in self-perception, we also pointed out above

some of the structural features of day release which may tend

to skew these perceptions. One tutor cautioned me that "There's a hell of a lot of play-acting that goes on in day release

classes." Perhaps more important than attempting to ferret out the play-acting from the true examples of educational

consciousness development is keeping in mind the comments of

the student-tumed-tutor regarding the limitations of his own

self-perceived "enlightenment."

Even considering these reservations, the field data

give ample evidence of the genuineness of the perceptions of

self-realization and development. The data considered in the next chapter on student involvement in the movement is one

source; Barratt Brown relates some characteristic expressions

of the change : 210

One miner told this writer that 'as Branch Secretary I'd always got by with flannel (i.e., pulling the wool over, etc. DH); but I had to come on the day release course to l e a m how to use flannel proper.' A steel worker commented that he didn't know if he'd learnt any economics but he knew he couldn't bear his furniture any longer (1969:19).

The increasing confidence with which day release students approached a wide variety of materials was evident in a broad range of field activities, added to the increased skill at negotiation and the change in taste pointed out in these typically-ironic comments. One leading trade union official credited day release with changing the face of the Sheffield area labor movement.

These comments must be measured against the kinds of disappointment in day release expressed by the more politically left students described above. One high-ranking official expressed the conviction that over the years, the course had really not raised the political consciousness of the workforce that much. These perspectives suggest the hypothesis that while day release is very effective in overcoming the negative consequences of educational underdevelopment on self-perception,

it does not have that much effect on the general political level of the unions, when viewed from the left. Precisely what is the kind of personal "sea change" which takes place in

so many during the course?

Let us return to our student-tumed-tutor, and the history of his own education and consciousness. The son of a miner, he passed the eleven plus examination, and was bussed 211 to a grammar school some miles from his pit village. In three years he had fallen to the bottom of the class:

I just got by, kept my head down; I waited until I could leave the place. No particular thing turned me off. The kids at school were not the kids around home, but I had friends at school. I rejected school; it wasn't that I felt out of place; I just contracted out at 15, arid started at the pit. I have never regretted it.

In the pit, he didn't go to his union branch meetings, although he developed a reputation as a union man— "You know, like when you were at the pit and something happened, they'd turn to you and say, 'You're a union man; what should we do about it?"'

When I went on the day release, I had a reputation as a union. Labour Party man. I remember attending a rally and carrying a Labour placard when I was 16. I was just reflecting the local area attitudes.

He found out about the course, by a notice on the wall.

It was great on the course; because of the teacher we had. It was like a discovery, different in content. When I had history in grammar school, it was all classic, never history relating to our own experience; it was rote learning, of dates at which kings and queens come to the throne. On day release, history was not just, you know, where the industrial revolution would be explained by illustrations of a kettle and steam power, but by the integration of social and economic developments ; we got a feeling for social movement and change.

He goes on to describe, as quoted above, his own sense of "I've got the key," and how this sense was later tempered. It would be particularly ironic if initial exposure to Marxist perspec­ tives and social history should create simultaneously a feeling of liberation (as one student called it) from educational underdevelopment and reconstitute the basis of a smug, anti­ intellectual attitude--"I don't have to think anymore." Yet 212 this is the kind of thing implicit in the radical critique of day release— that, as it were, the personal "Fanshen"^ is not accompanied by the political.

Another area where there was an almost universal concern expressed by those involved in day release was the effects on immediate personal, family life. This problem was particularly of interest to ex-student D. L. Noble, who did his Ruskin Thesis on The Sheffield Industrial Day Release Course : It' s Effects bn

Some Students within Their Industrial and Doinestic Environments

(1974). Noble argues that involvement in the course often raises fundamental problems of readjustment in both the industrial and domestic environment. Regarding the latter, he comments :

Education is a major contributing fact toward the man's development outside his normal industrial environ­ ment, and this makes it necessary for him to make certain fundamental readjustments in this aspect of his life (p. 61) . Another student, who called his Ruskin thesis about day release

(Goode 1974) Thank You for Giving Me a Future, points out that the effects of day release on the individual can be substantial, including especially frustration with marriages. In interviews, tutors raised this issue as one of the main problems with day release, and they discussed a number of steps taken to enable spouses to be included in the "sea change." These have included having the wives and girl friends along at the various evening events and social activities which accompany a day release class, and arranging special activities for the wives at the Easter

Weekend school at Skegness. This was clearly not seen as 213 adequate, and some saw organizing classes of the miners' wives as the only real solution.

Turning to evidence of more positive effects on consciousness, it is clear 1) that the courses provide a good framework for the exchange of useful work-related and trade union information. This was particularly a consequence of the kind of dialogue which took place informally, over tea, while thumbing through the book-box, or over a pint. One tutor claimed that this in fact was the major benefit of the course.

2) Another benefit is the opportunity to help focus the criticality which is a part of "bloody-minded militancy," or as one tutor put it, "They develop a more questioning attitude toward everything, but especially their own previous ideas.

They're more willing to hear unpopular points of view." 3)

Students were placed in an environment which oriented them toward searching for intellectual stimulus ; I ran into them in the Sheffield radical bookshops, and on field trips to London, stoping by Charing Cross and the book shops is an essential part of what goes on. Day release students are excellent audiences for political theater, I was told, because they are

"addicted to thinking" and participate avidly in the discussions after plays.

4) In my own opinion, I think one of the most salutory consequences of day release on consciousness is the more integrated, one might say "realistic" attitude toward education which develops among the students. Whereas "the 214 typical working class lad or lass" is likely to manifest an extreme ambivalence toward education— an extreme seriousness and respect for education, combined with a personal anti- intellectualism— day release students start to see themselves in the educationist ideology. They consequently have moderated views of both education ("We'll whip this tutor in shape") and intellectual activity ("Tha's a right fair comment, tha'").

As one tutor sees it, "They begin to see education as a reward for their effort at work, and so they enjoy it more for itself."

They become committed to education, but not at the cost of extreme alienation from their roots.

5) The experience of day release also has a number of effects in legitimatihg a working class perspective. It reinforces a serious approach to both intellectual and industrial work, and it reinforces a kind of class pride. This is doubtless a consequence of the numerous discussions regarding workers' control which are a regular part of each course (and of course this is inevitable in any discussion of the work process among workers). Workplace representatives on various managing boards within the British Steel Corporation (BSC) have included former day release students.

6) The Working class perspective is also concretized.

One of the most interesting conversations I took part in while in the field was between a group of miners on a day-release course at Nottingham University similar to the one in Sheffield and a group of Scunthorpe steel workers, including some former 215 day release students. The topic of the conversation was the productivity bargain. Notts. miners, because of favorable geological conditions, are likely to benefit greatly in terms of income from any productivity scheme in the mining industry.

The steelworkers themselves had experienced a spate of productivity regimens, especially because they were working at

the plant most favored in terms of investment in the new BSC.

The steelworkers spoke at length of the difficulties such

schemes had given their organizations, including how they related to the loss of day release courses in their industry.

Within a general agreement on the need to maintain organization whatever changes were introduced, the miners probed for the consequences of specific schemes, and with the help of their

tutor, drew historic and structural analogies to mining. In

the end, the miners reconfirmed more deeply their commitment

to fighting such schemes in their industry.

Such conversations this one was possible because the

steel workers had insisted that they be allowed to host the miners on the tour; they had gotten around management insistence

on being represented at an afternoon meeting by cancelling the meeting and extending the informal discussion after a huge

BSC "executive luncheon"— such conversations have a direct, material consequence upon consciousness in that an established

group of workers develops a conversational, educational link with another group, learning about the specific conditions of

each others' work, within a context of a collectively struggled- 216 for right to establish their connection. Both the conclusion drawn and the fraternity established are evidence of the effect on consciousness.

7) Finally, a number of tutors referred to the therapeutic effects of day release, particularly on those who are lonely and frustrated.

It makes them feel better. It gets them together in a group and it gets them talking, and it provides them with an opportunity to form friendships and attachments or interests.

The point is made that, even if such individuals do not become active, or aren't any more knowledgeable, they still play a role in the broader class, and learning to communicate with them is important for those who would be leaders.

I could see these therapeutic, legitimating, concretizing, integrating, searching, focusing, and exchanging of knowledge effects of day release through my participation in the program. I could also see the extent to which students on the course manifest a confident attitude; several of them told me of what a personal difference the course had made for them. I couldn't see this difference, but this was because I hadn't known them before. I could see political limitations in perspective in the classroom practice of tutors, but I was much more impressed by the confidence and the effects like those noted. Perhaps, as was pointed out to me on occasion,

I was "blinded by the light" of opportunities for trade union day release still not available to one single worker in the

United States of which I am aware. 217

This survey of information regarding the effects of day release concludes with the following summation: That while there is strong evidence of the effects of the program on student self-perception and self-confidence, which is likely to result in a more positive attitude toward involvement in work and community activities, there is reason to pay particular attention to the overall political effectiveness of the program.

This is not a matter of consciousness, but more of action. In the following chapter, we turn to consideration of the effects of the program on what students do at work and in the community. NOTES

^See Scriven (1973) Andrews and Hakken (1977), and Hakken (1975) for a discussion of attempts to formulate a goal-free approach to educational evaluation. O William Hinton (1966) uses this term to describe local level revolution in China.

218 CHAPTER SEVEN

ASSESSING THE CONSEQUENCES OF

SHEFFIELD DAY RELEASE ; ACTION

In the first chapter of this section on day release education, the Sheffield University day release program was described, and in the second, an attempt was made to develop

some hypotheses regarding the program's consequences. These hypotheses were based on consideration of data collected in the field which pertain to the effects of the program on students' consciousness and consciousnesses. The data on consciousness were summarized in terms of the hypothesis that whereas there seemed to be significant evidence of a positive effect on self-perception and self-confidence, close attention

should be paid to the overall political effectiveness of the program: Does it, in the words of one tutor, "cultivate the will and the capacity to govern?" If so, what is the specific nature of the skills and actions which manifest the will and

capacity; are they such to enable the working class actually

to rule?

In this chapter, we turn to consideration of the effects

of day release manifest more in terms of action than in terms

of consciousness. Of course, distinguishing between these

two types of data is somewhat arbitrary, since there is

obviously a dialectical relationship between consciousness

219 220

and action. Nonetheless, the distinction did allow an approach to several difficult issues in the last chapter, and should simplify matters in consideration of action as well. The present chapter will consider first data which reflect on the specific abilities which students develop in the course and how these abilities are manifest in their intellectual practice.

This will be followed by discussion of what effects the program has on student participation in working class organizations.

In the next chapter, the level of analysis shifts somewhat to consider what effect the program appears to have on unions, some of the more general effects of the existence of the program, and its future. A final summary will consider all the data presented in this and the previous chapter from the point of view of whether the program should or should not be described as manifesting a working class perspective.

EFFECTS ON STUDENTS' ABILITIES

As pointed out in the first chapter of this section,

day release pedagogy is aimed at creating a group-oriented

educational environment through reproducing the structure and

ambience of working class community social relationships; this

environment is to improve student's self-perception and self-

confidence. Single industry groups, it will be recalled, were justified on the argument that shared experience would mean

that no one would feel at an experiential disadvantage, and on how such arrangements lessen the likelihood of "competition" between industries. One way to see this pedagogy is as a 221

conditioning mechanism, conditioning students to an environment where, one day a week, they can express themselves freely, to develop whatever latent or already flourishing skills of communication they might possess. The presumption of day release is that the important skills are already possessed, even if latent in the sense that they may be more located in the community than in the individual. By stressing the community of shared experience, you can best develop the skills collectively, both those possessed by the group and by the individuals within it. This approach contrasts clearly with the "training" approach which sees skills as having to be brought to the trainee from outside.

The level of these collective skills has risen greatly over the past years, in the opinion of virtually all of the workers' educators with whom I discussed the question in the field. In fact, one of the strongest arguments that could be made for the positive effects of the day release program would be a conclusive demonstration of a casual connection between the program and this rise. While tutors were hesitant to claim that such a connection existed in the context of inadequate evidence, they certainly noted how this rise in community skills was manifest in their classes. We do know that this rise is correlated with a conscious orientation among the tutors to contribute to it. While not listing day release as one of the major factors as to why recent classes feel different, one tutor acknowledged that there could have been an influence: 222

The fact that students knew of day release and even got feedback from those on the course would be an educational stimulus throughout the union and con­ tribute to the development of self-conscious and confident leaders.

But these effects of day release, he cautioned, must be seen within the more general context of a) a greater awareness in the working class of their rights of communication; b) less deference to the middle class; c) an educational awareness in the mass media— he used the example of having disc jockey's interview cabinet ministers as a manifestation of the rising responsiveness of media to the mass audience's demand for real content--; and d) a mass media induced suspicion of tutors as brain-washers. He explained this latter by pointing out how students initially place tutors in much the same category as BBC news commentators ; "They are, after all, what the tutors often sound like."

The difference between younger and older generations of British workers is captured beautifully by Huw Beynon. He

describes a meeting between a group of Scousers (Liverpudlians)

from the engineering industry (auto workers) and Welch engineers

from a mining background, of whom he says :

These men lived in Swansea or travelled to work from the surrounding valleys. Their heritage was the pits. The pits that were being closed but which lived on in their collectivism. They carried the marks of the pit in blue on their hands and faces. Union men. The solid, traditional heart of the British Labour movement. Home- knitted, zipper cardigans - the occasional floral tie. One of the stewards leaned across the table and told one of his mates, who had just arrived, to keep his eye on the door, "because the Halewood boys will be coming through there any minute now." They arrived late and 223

the contrast was complete. Not only in their dress but in their very being. That night they stretched hands across and recognized working-class solidarity, they acknowledged their common heritage. Yet a development within the working class was apparent. These (Halewood— DH) men respected tradition but seemed to be less bound by it. In their activities they were bringing a new, perhaps cosmopolitan, dimension to working-class culture and politics in this country. Between them, they had attended thousands of meetings : they travelled regularly by Inter-City to London or Birmingham and in a few years they had been involved in more negotiations than most stewards experienced in a lifetime (1975:71).

This is a description of worker intellectuals.

The problem is to separate out evidence for an increase in abilities to communicate attributable specifically to day release from the increase attributable to other factors. Clearly a good place to begin is with reading and writing. As a con­ sequence of the selection procedure screening,day release students can usually write neatly, legibly, and coherently.

If the program adds something to this skill, it is the opportunity to write freely and openly about matters of great concern and for a tutor who will pay close attention, providing technical assistance where necessary. I have already quoted exerpts from some of this writing, stressed particularly in the first year of the three year courses, and I have stressed its quality.

During the field period, I was made aware of a number of working class writer workshops or writing groups developing throughout the country, although not in Sheffield (possibly because day release provides an outlet for these talents?).

One such group in Liverpool had an interesting history which 224

throws some light on the possible dynamics of working class writing. The Liverpool group was initiated by tenants within the context of a community education program described in

Chapter Fourteen. The group got together around discussion of

British literature with a working class orientation: Orwell,

Mrs. Gaskell, Lawrence, etc. At first, the tutor felt the group was groping toward a kind of working class criticism, but gradually it was revealed that each member of the group was actually writing himself or herself, and the group began to discuss this work. By now, several volumes of short stories and poems have been published by the workshop and circulated to other groups (Scotland Road Writers Workshop 1976(?)). It may be particularly in this literary vein that the tradition of

"every man a philosopher" has been maintained within the British working class, and it is evident that in regard to writing, day release may be more involved in providing an outlet for existing talents than developing something completely new. Clearly, day release also legitimates writing about topics of intimate concern to students— although not typically a literary focus— such as the work process or community activities, or even the coal industry, and this is also a noteworthy contribution of the program.

Day release also contributes to the development of reading skills both by introducing students to literature with which they would not likely be familiar and by providing a context in which the literature can be discussed. This helps 225

give focus and purpose to reading; the class is an arena in which one's ability to participate is enhanced by one's reading practice. The selection process has made it unlikely that anyone without minimal reading skills would be allowed on the course.^ As pointed out previously, the problem with reading is more likely that students on day release "don't like to read" than that they can't.

A feature of day release which contributes significantly to developing reading skill and discipline is the book box. A unique part of the extramural tradition, the book box is a large fiber box left permanently in the classroom where classes meet.

The box contains most of the 100 or so books listed on the course syllabus, with multiple copies of particularly popular titles. Students sign out books from the box and return them, perhaps over tea while discussing them with their classmates.

The book box is an attenuated form of the Miner's Libraries

(Francis 1976) which developed in South Wales and other areas. Through the book box and purchasing books through the tutor (such as the Hutchinson series described in Chapter

Twelve), students learn skills in handling books as tools and are assisted in developing a personal library of useful materials. The discipline which develops is manifest in the fact that even though students sometimes fail to return books, almost no one ever takes a book for the box without signing it out! On a symbolic level, the book box is an important repository of the collective resources of the group, and in 226

using the box, students l e a m to draw upon these resources in a manner which does not interfere with access to these resources by other students.

Additional student skills stressed in the first year of the course include numeracy, public speaking and discussion, meeting organization and practice, and research. In the past, students were given practice in the use of a slide rule, although when I was in the field, most discussion regarding instruction in numeracy centered around the advisability of using hand calculators in the beginning or whether to wait until later stages. Like most students I have met, day release students grumbled about having to study numeracy, but the grumbling was contained by a consciousness that as negotiators, knowledge of the manipulation of numbers was an essential skill.

I have spoken above of the long periods devoted to class discussions which provide a supportive atmosphere and try to bring in all students. Public speaking practice takes place in such discussion as well as in the context of exercises concerning meeting organization and practice. The basic notion

informing this kind of activity in class is the value of

"learning by doing" or "discovery learning," long a part of union education. First year teaching materials include exercises, documents, and guides on;

1. Reporting back;

2. Making a speech; 227

3. Procedure for a motion raised from the floor;

4. Procedure for a motion raised from the floor with a single amendment ;

5. Exercise in meeting procedure for chairmen;

6. Notes on the Exercise in Meeting Procedure for Chairman;

7. Standing Orders of the - - - Trades and Labour Council;

8. Notes on the Meeting of the Blanktown Trades Council;

9. Minutes of the meeting of the Blanktown Trades Council.

These materials are used, sometimes in conjunction with tape recordings, sometimes with mock meetings carried out by the students themselves, and sometimes as guides to be followed in undertaking these various tasks. For those inexperienced in such events, the practice is probably quite valuable, while for those with experience, it provides a chance to reflect on their past practice. A mock meeting may provide a useful stimulus to their ability to "theorize" about what they are really accomplishing.

That students come out of day release with advanced skills in meeting organization was evident in the "Draft Rules of the Yorkshire Miners Students' Association" developed by

students in a 3rd year class who were interested in maintaining contact through regular discussions of important topics after

completing the course. The rules covered: name and objective, eligibility for membership, officers (including procedures for

selecting and replacing them were they to "die, resign, or be

removed"), procedures for officer removal, meeting procedures 228

for conducting business, the date of the Annual General

Meeting, independence of the association, the fact that day- release lecturers may attend but not hold office, the annual subscription, and review of the rules.

Students also get practice in the use of various research skills, both in class and through various individual and group research projects. In class, much of the emphasis is on the use and interpretation of various official statistics. For example, in a railways class, various sheets on comparative strike statistics were passed around to the students; the tutor pointed out:

You can see that an increase in the number of strikes does not necessarily lead to an increase in the number of days lost through strikes. In the latter column, Britain doesn't do badly in comparison to the United States and other countries. Whether your statistics look good or bad depends upon the column you select.

On another occasion, the same tutor demonstrated in the following manner how the large figures for losses due to strikes presented on television news were often misleading. The figures purport to indicate lost income due to the strikes, but they are usually just calculations of the number of units not produced times the retail price of those units. Very rarely are the lost wages, lower overhead, and other savings subtracted, nor is

the value of the units likely left unsold or the extra produc­ tion likely after the strike is resolved.

It is because this extra production is quite large that one minute— during a strike— British Leyland's can utter cries of impending financial disaster, while only a few weeks later, the company can claim to be in the black. 229

In this manner, the "ordinary lad"'s suspicion of the use of

statistics in general by the mass media and other elements of the dominant culture is transformed away from a general feeling to an analysis of the details of specific statistics. As

students develop their own skills with numbers, and use them

in the course of class writing, speeches, and debates, they develop better skills of distinguishing a useful statistic

from a useless one.

Barratt Brown refers to a number of interesting

individual and group class projects (1969:14). One of the most interesting projects I observed was one on pit talk in a

first year class. The class had first attempted to develop a

list of all the terms used in the pit. These were then grouped alphabetically by the tutor, and for one period of each day of class for several weeks, the terms were gone through,

swapped around, and grouped for cross-referencing. This was

called "filling in the gaps and definitions." In the class I visited, two pages of "1" and "m" words were being gone over.

As each term came up, the men discussed it arid commented upon

its usage in their pit. One obvious matter was how usage varied among the pits. Among the more interesting terms were:

a) magic carpet— the conveyor belt for taking coal out of the pit;

b) mat man, or "ganger;" these are the material handlers; ganger is an older term for the same job, when the ganger was a pony driver;

c) monday hammer— a big tool that, according to one miner, got its name from the fact that "when you used it, you were fucked for a week"— that is, from Monday on; 230

d) mester, which means "men," or the work group; this is interesting, because in Sheffield Gity, the same term, as in "little mester" is used to refer to a master craftsman or small owner.

Such exercises have a number of functions. First, they legitimate the mining experience as something worthy of understanding and o analysis. Second, they help build self-confidence through the special skills which the students possess; literally no one could do this particular task better than these students.

Third, they help homogenize the group, partly by establishing terminological equivalents where there is a divergency in pit talk practice. Fourth, they give a certain amount of recognition and status to the individuals in the group with a special understanding of the industry's history; these "experts" tend to be older and perhaps in need of some advantages over the younger lads. Finally, they involve the whole group in some intellectual work with a specific tangible product, the value and relevance of which they can see, thereby reinforcing the general sense of the value of properly executed intellectual work and the discipline of doing something which serves the class interest.

Skills like these, while obviously related to developing self-confidence, can be counterproductive. Barratt Brown relates the story of the miner who carried out a project on the future of mining during which, as a consequence of his research, he concluded that the industry had no future and he got out of it. Broader questions must be asked about the cumulative effect of the development of such individual 231 abilities. The question with which the last chapter ended is again relevant: Do personal developments, like heightened consciousness and improved skills of communication, result in practice which is political? Does day release contribute to students' commitment as well as their abilities, to their using the skills developed to integrate what they l e a m into a more informed perspective of use to the class? In particular, does the suspicion and general negativism characteristic of the individual "bloody-minded militant" get focused on more specific targets; does the tendency to be critical get trans­ formed into an ability to think critically?

In essence, these are questions about the intellectual practice of the students in the classes— does their practice justify our calling them worker intellectuals "in the Gramscian sense?" Is their practice praxis ? In general, the field experience convinced me that the answer must be "yes."

There are really two points of view from which to evaluate the political impact of day release students. One is to look at them "in intellectual action," as it were, in their political and trade union organizations as well as in political argument in class and at the pub. The second is to look at what the organizations which they try to influence are like and what they actually end up doing. In summarizing the consciousness and abilities of day release students, we have really been viewing things from the first perspective. We

shall turn more to the second in the next chapter. With regard 232

to both perspectives, I reached the same conclusion: The

practice of day release is political. It is both an ambitious

attempt to apply political theory to practice, and it actually

effects the process of social reproduction. It is often

effective application of theory to practice ; this is why it is most politically instructive to any one privileged to observe

it closely.

Individual Student Practice as Theoretical Practice

I shall summarize this discussion of student skills by

focusing on the political aspects of individual theoretical

practice; that is, I shall attempt to identify those conceptual

elements or symbols, and their interrelationships, which day

release students apply as tools to comprehend and to direct

their social action. As was pointed out in the first chapter

of this section when particular days of day release were

described, the dialogue of these classes is political. It is

political, for example, in its language, as is obvious in the

student comments quoted in that chapter: "government inter­

vention," "union dominated by the bosses," and "another way

forward for the working class movement." The symbol "socialism"

governs the realm of discourse of the day release class.^ The

meaning of many of the other linguistic categories used on day

release and by day release students is mediated through and

derived from this symbol, which is taken as the assumed,

understood goal of the primary actors in this realm, \dio are

the working class as a whole and all those \dio are a part of 233

it, the "typical lad" and those who are "political." It is in regard to this symbol that workers justify their opinions ideologically.

It is nonetheless also important to see "socialism" as a symbolic channel with a largely non-specific content ; or rather, as a symbol covering a large area of semantic turf.

The content of "socialism" is only to be discovered, located through the correct application of dialectical conceptual sets to the existing social reality. This reality is not apprehended a priori, but is discovered through investigation— "There's got to be a way forward for the working class, but I don't know what it is." "Socialism" is understood as the way forward, and the symbol therefore structures discussion, but in a non-specified way; socialism is to be discovered.

In the classes, the tutors deliberately build upon this non-specificity, by bringing up awkward bits of informa­ tion, and pointing out situations where "the common prejudice" is grossly inappropriate. The students respond with their own opinions expressed freely, and these often in opposition to those expressed by the tutor and other students. At the same time, everyone works together to support the legitimacy of the individual opinions. The formalization of this collective support was most advanced in the student-initiated "debate" during the T&G summer school at Cirencester described in

Chapter Eleven, but in day release classes there was a noticeable discipline of supportive comments. In the vociferous 234 give and take of dialectical argument like this, industrial workers have some real advantages over those who like anthro­ pologists, identify very closely with the symbols, distinctions, and linguistic performances which are the product of their

labor. Workers produce material objects and have much less of their sense of personal self-worth tied up in their symbolic practice. For this reason it is easier to function with categories like "socialism" and "the interest of the working class" as more nebulous, to-be-collectively-defined categories.

Strong opinions strongly expressed are trusted, not as unerring

guides to the truth, but as a necessary part of articulating parts of the truth. Thus the kind of intellectual fencing which

takes place among students on day release has a very different

quality from that of, say, a graduate seminar--partly because

the dominant symbols are different, but also because the

intellectual performances take on less of the cast of verbal pyrotechnics designed to impress the professor with the uniqueness of one's thought.

I believe that the high level of content and comprehen­

sion which I witnessed in day release classes--a critical but

integrative, independent but collective style of intellectual

practice--does reproduce on academic turf many of the polemical

styles of working class speech (parole). Just as importantly,

outside the classroom, day release students in their intellectual

practice manifest the same attributes of disciplined support,

argumentation through opposition, and attention to existing 235

information that originally prompted the Science for People conversation quoted at the beginning of the first chapter of this section. They engage in the fight against anti-intellec- tualism within the working class movement, for example, through structuring an intellectual component into their political debate. This is precisely the role of the Easter Weekend

School held by the Derbyshire miners each year; in the words of the Derbyshire NUM Secretary, the school is "an opportunity to hear the visions of intellectuals" with regard to the problems, like the future of collective bargaining, with which the miners have to deal in their unions. This intellectual commitment is an integral part of realizing what the president of the Yorkshire NUM describes as "the need to struggle." The asking of questions is encouraged as part of a process of discovering a framework for ideas and a focus for critical skills.

There is another essential element in the political character of the intellectual practice of day release students.

This will be discussed in more detail shortly, but there is in their political thought a significant stress on unity. Groups like the Yorkshire Miners Students' Association are conceived of as mechanisms for creating political unity within the union ; the aspect of their political work in which day release students expressed the most pride was the unity that it created, especially among adherents of sectarian positions. Their intellectual practice in a variety of contexts was aimed at 236 developing a group opinion, but this was to be based on information, not platitudes; it was not to be ritualized. There is thus a particular character to the way that day release students generalize; from the particular analysis of practice, not the repetition of accepted wisdom, a general conclusion is drawn, often a conclusion which inverts the typical use of categories of thought:

But look what has happened with the (industrial) tribunals; they all seem to go against the workers. Why don't the tribunals ever refer to the tacit shop floor agreements won by the workers? I think this is basically just fair weather legislation. It would be better to call it an Employers' Charter.

One may quibble that in fact all the tribunals don't go against the workers; or against the exaggeration of "Employers' Charter."

Yet the issue of tribunal recognition of tacit agreements, or

"custom and practice" is at the heart of any attempt at institutionalizing industrial relations in a manner which gains shop floor support. Ultimately, I was impressed by the intellectual practice of day release because of the number of occasions in which this kind of intellectual practice helped me understand the nub of important issues in just such a manner. A similar experience involved a day release class paper on industrial health and safety written by a student who was also taking part in a safety class which I convened. His main point was how health and safety issues were handled within the context of the existing industrial relations situation, from which derived both the possibilities and the limitations 237

on how they could be dealt with. In both this paper, and in the comment quoted above, the ultimate effect of the worker intellectual practice is to identify the important empirical issue.

Student Pr ac t ice as Polit ical Pr ac t ice : Participation in Working Class OrgariizatlOris

It was argued above that there were two points of view from which the polical nature of day release student practice was evident, the intellectual practice and the effect of students on their organizations. I now turn to the latter sort of evidence, that for student involvement in working class organizations and what kinds of things they do when involved.

The first point is that many students are already involved before coming on the course; existing involvement is one reason for their being selected in some cases. Once on the course, there are numerous pressures to maintain and increase their involvement; the desire to have concrete information to bring to class discussion orto try out some of the things suggested over ale in talks with one's new mates.

There are also explicit pressures from tutors on the class as a whole and on individuals. One tutor explained it to me this way:

Tutors encourage student involvement in working class organizations. We can do this because we are not a program for credentials and that. The class is a good time, one when students charge their batteries and meet new friends, but it's important to help them find new activities to replace the class when 238

it is over. I'm more committed to pushing students now to getting involved, to using moral pressure. I tell them they're wasting an opportunity if they don't. I changed my mind about this when I attended a school at the University for administrators. At this school, they were pushing management tactics and real management propaganda. It made me think, 'I'm being too bloody cadgy, you know, too academically neutral.' I still point out the other side of the argument, but I push involvement in the unions and in local government, or in social work, as school governors, chairmen of workingmen's clubs, or anything.

Actually, in his classroom, this tutor did more than "point out

the other side of the argument" in some perfunctory manner ; he

in fact had his own way of raising questions in a provocative manner. Nonetheless, all the tutors, each in his own way, saw

involvement in outside activities as an integral, necessary

part of the pedagogy of the class. What are the results of

this pressure?

Unions

In mining, the most obvious locus of involvement in

civil society is the union branch.^ In the results of a survey

of miners' day release students published in 1975, MacFarlane

says the following about participation in the branch:

Out of the total of 126 miners who responded to the survey, no less than fifty-two (41%) were involved in trade union work. Of this group, seventeen ex-students (13.5%) were active in the trade union when selected for day-release and retained the same branch position after the course. A further group of sixteen students (12.5%) moved to higher branch office such as president, delegate or secretary, and eighteen students (14%) who were not active in union affairs when selected for the day-release course became active later, many being elected directly to the higher offices of the branch without previously having served at a lower level. One student in this category has the remarkable 239

achievement of becoming NUM branch secretary at three different collieries, as first one and then the second pit closed down (pp,83-84).

MacFarlane points out that the survey covered 72.5% of all contactable students on the Yorkshire course, and therefore

I think it is a creditable reflection of the general effects of the course on involvement. MacFarlane quotes one student who added the following comment to his survey :

I thought you would be interested to know that the recent ballot at the pit resulted in me being elected delegate. No doubt attending the day-release course contributed a great deal to my success. I would be obliged if you would convey to all concerned in the Department of Extramural Studies my thanks and appreciation for providing the opportunity for further education (p. 84).

Another former student told me.

Day release led to my being active in the branch. I joined the branch committee and became a member of the consultative committee and the safety committee. I became an active union man, active and committed.

There thus appears to be some evidence to conclude that day release does have a relationship to more active involvement in the branch in the NJM . That the same type of thing is likely in other unions is evidenced by the number of steel stewards

I met who were on day release before the course was shut down, and the fact that a whole new slate of NAL60 officers was elected to local leadership after meeting each other on the day release course. That education has an effect on the intellectual practice of those who become more active is likely as well. At a party in Derbyshire I was expressing a feeling of skepticism about the effects of education to an NUM 240 bratich President, skepticism especially about the effects of

the Skegness Weekend School at which I had been a tutor. I

imagined that the school really has little effect, and he

responded.

Oh, no, I've seen the effects already. At our last branch meeting, some of the lads were using arguments that you yourself had made at the school. The school always provides the lads with the arguments that they use in the branch meeting throughout the coming year. They use them their own way, of course, but they use them.

One of the tutors summarized what he knew about student effect

on branch meetings by commenting that when day release students went to a branch meeting and made noise, they generally knew what they were making noise about— they did it for some reason.

In contrast to the "bloody-minded militant" another tutor

described them as being "militant and moderate." Does this mean that day release students exercise a moderating influence

on the branch? The tutor explains ;

If they do some'at, if they act, there is a tendency by their being interested to press for their own democratic control. This means they often define themselves in conflict, not as bloody-minded militants, from a philosophy or for the hell of it. They are Marxists who are more moderate and more involved, but their actions are more revolutionary. They have confidence in the use of organizational forms, and they have a belief in the right to form their own decisions.

The question of the extent and nature of the contradic­

tion between union leadership and "rank and file" is of central

concern on the British left and in every other political move­

ment in advanced industrial societies. Leftist critics claim 241

that bureaucratic leadership of trade unions is a primary con­

tributor to the failure of trade unions to play a more decisive

role in the socialist transformation. The main symbol of such

practice in the British trade union movement is the sellout

of the General Strike in 1926. At least one left organization,

the Socialist Workers' Party, has dedicated itself to a trade union strategy of encouraging the development of permanent

rank and file opposition caucuses in the unions, based on an

analysis which sees an irreconcilable contradiction between

leadership and rank and file. Therefore the question of the

relation of day release to this contradiction is vital. The

evidence at my disposal indicates that, for reasons like those

cited by the tutor quoted above, day release students do

contribute to an oppositional culture in their trade unions.

Andrew Taylor claimed in a presentation on "The NUM and Political

Action" that the Yorkshire area NUM has developed, over the

last 20 years, a tradition of militant opposition to leadership.

Although the most noticeable manifestation of this tradition

is that which has surrounded the rise to power of Arthur

Skargill in the Yorkshire NUM, it is manifest at other levels

as well. Day release students were among those most active in

attempts to find accurate information regarding the hazards of

hydraulic fluids in coal mining,^ while union officials, although

cooperative, failed to take much initiative on the problem.

Among Derbyshire students, some expressed to me on a couple of 242

occasions their criticisms of the Area leadership and the administrative steps which had been taken by leadership to oppose those who criticize.

These expressions of dissent took no organizational form that I was made aware of; though present at the Skegness

Weekend School, individuals involved made no obvious contact with SWP adherents on the course were active at the school.

Moreover, there was a period of time when the Derbyshire leadership actually complained about the lack of student

involvement of any kind in the union. One tutor explained this situation to me as a consequence of a number of factors,

including the fact that many students had left the industry,^ and that a high proportion of those not leaving the industry immediately were interested in full-time study at places like

Ruskin College. While these particular factors are no longer dominant (the prospects for the industry have brightened considerably, and the students have also become conscious of

the glut in many occupations for which academic credentials are required), the Derbyshire leadership still expressed doubts to me regarding the overall political effectiveness of education.

This question of the relationship between leadership and rank Q and file is taken up again in the following chapter. How

complicated it can be is revealed in the story of what happened after the NALGO "day release" group was elected into local office. Once elected, the group lost the sense of coherence

developed on the course, and it was unable to deal effectively 243 with a crisis in the local branch. This crisis was precipitated by a rightwing backlash against SWP-identified shop stewards.

Local Gbverhmeht and Political Party Ihvolvenieht

MacFarlane's data indicate that 27% of the students who had been on Yorkshire day release held elected positions as rural, parish, or urban district councillors; more than 2/3's of these had not held positions before coming on the course.

Interestingly, roughly half of the coalminer/student councillors survived election under the 1974 local government reorganization, even though the number of elected positions was cut to 1/4 its former size (1975:85).} In contrast, Taylor sees an historic decline in miners' interest in local government. During the period of field study, miners in the nearby Nottingham constituency of Ashfield failed to vote in such numbers that a

Conservative candidate was elected for the first time in history.

Since there was much objection to the bureaucratic manner in which the candidate was selected, not voting is not necessarily a sign of apathy.

Essentially, the data I was able to gather on political and community involvement of day release students were complicated and mixed. They create an impression of increase of organiza­ tional work and struggle for change, but there are many problems left unresolved. There are numerous examples of a positive involvement by students. Day release students were well represented among those who took off work to go down to London on a special train to demonstrate against cuts in public 244 spending. A disabled miner was the founder of the Welfare

Claimants and Unemployed Workers* Union. A group of students with whom I went to London on a field trip to Parliament spoke of many changes needed in their unions and political organizations, particularly the Labour Party. They very much approved the approach to politics of Dennis Skinner, the Member of Parliament (MP) from Bolsover in the Derbyshire coalfield and a student on the third year of the Derbyshire day release course. Skinner is one of the most favored speakers at left wing labour rallies and he has developed something of a reputation as a firebrand: The SUhday Times calls him "Dennis the Menace." As I sat with these students in the visitors' gallery during question time, Skinner asked the following question of the Minister of Transport:

Is the honorable Minister aware that if this Labour Government insists on carrying out the cuts in public spending on transport as well as the other savage cuts in public spending, the only thing it will accomplish is the utter and complete alienation from socialism of the working class constituency which it is supposed to represent?

Another ex-student, the Labour candidate for another

Derbyshire constituency, prefaced his comments at the Easter

Weekend School sponsored by the Derbyshire Miners by saying that "The only answer to the problems of the present moment is the complete eradication of capitalism." He then went on to question whether a Tory Government wouldn't be better than a

Labour Government carrying out Tory policies— "Margaret

Thatcher may represent the dark side of capitalism, but we know how to fight that. " 245

On the other hand, a working class orientation is not always such a clear part of the political practice of the organizations to which the students belong. Taylor claimed that the NUM was conspicuous by its absence as an organized force in the Constituency Labour Parties (CLP's) of Yorkshire; the Barnsley WEA tutor/organizer supported him by saying that in his experience, the Barnsley CLP was an almost underground organization. For Dennis Skinner on the left there is Eric

Varley on the right, a day release classmate of Skinner. Varley took over the Ministry of Industry from after loss of the referendum to remove Britain from the European Common

Market, and he began dismantling popular parts of the "Industrial o Strategy" of the 1974 Labour Party Manifesto.

In sum, I am left with the impression that day release does encourage a number of working class lads to become involved in local government, as school governors, etc., and that once in these positions, British society as a whole benefits from their diligence and skill. Once in these positions, they may stay "straight" or become "bent." As individual, democratic, educated, authentic working class voices, they have an effect, but it was difficult to see a direct, overall effect of their involvement in the local political process. Sometimes the effect was even negative: The local NALGO crisis greatly handicapped the Sheffield campaign against cuts in public spending by essentially immobilizing any NALGO involvement ; the union had been expected to carry a major share of the campaign. 246

These problems are not solely a consequence of "the day release

connection," but this had its impact.

It appears that day release has a positive impact on

those problems in political organizations which can be greatly

improved by an influx of more self-confident, "organic" workers. More knotty problems are less amenable to solution by simply increasing participation. Those with less experience

are more prone to be stymied by the immobilizing effects of

traditional structures.

One reason why several of the younger students seemed

to be turning to groups like the SWP may have been to avoid

such structures. In addition to an SWP presence on the

Easter Weekend School, the newspaper for the SWP-identified

rank and file group in the NUM is headquartered in Barnsley, which is also the location of the Yorkshire NUM headquarters.

Other young students, and some older ones, were involved in

the Communist Party. Elsewhere in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and

Scunthorpe, day release students seemed to work typically within the Labour Party. It appears that the form of involve­ ment in political organizations may be more determined by

outside forces (the fabt that the Barnsley CLP is unreconstructed, while the other constituencies are more open and democratic)

than by simple student inclination or the effect of day release.

Effects at Work

An ex-day release student, bound for a job as an

industrial tutor, was asked by an external examiner whether 247

he felt that worker education "improved industrial relations."

When asked to clarify, the examiner wondered if education would cut down the number of strikes. The student responded that he guessed there would be the same number of strikes, but that

the ones on strike "would be more articulate." Barratt Brown reaches similar conclusions after considering the fact that

since day release started, strikes in the Yorkshire coal field have gone up while in Derbyshire they appear to have gone down :

Thus, there is little evidence to associate the frequency of strikes with either more or less education... The tutors would wish to argue that their aim is not concerned with either increasing or reducing the incidence of or length of strikes, but only perhaps with encouraging more rational decisions on such matters (1969:20-21).

Absenteeism and pit-head conflict have gone up in Yorkshire; in

Derbyshire there is the most sophisticated elaboration of joint

(management-union) consultative machinery in the industry, and absenteeism is down. As mentioned above, students from day release have participated in the worker director schemes of

the steel industry.

The failure of such statistical and structural approaches

to indicate a uniform direction for the impact of day release

on the workplace should not be taken as evidence of the absence of such an impact, however. Students spend a great deal of classtime discussing workplace issues. Papers are written

on these subjects, and they undoubtedly have an effect on

individual conduct and even union policy. A paper by a NALGO

student on work study contains the following conclusions : 248

That the NALGO shop stewards in common with all other Trade Unionists should always endeavor to understand the schemes of management and the full consequences which could result from each individual (work study) investigation; Always establish & fully understand the terms of reference, the object and limits of each work study exercise, and be in possession of a signed agreement to this effect by management before allowing the exercise to commence.

Like the aspects of the day release already discussed,

the effect on the workplace is mediated through other, particularly political economic structures and events. In terms of coal, perhaps two of the most important events are the nationalization of the industry in 1947 and the National

Power Loading Agreement (NPLA) of 1965. Whatever the material effects of nationalization on the workers have been--and there are many, including some on day release, who feel the effects have been adverse— there, is an important psychological effect which, among other things, appears to be manifest in a greater

identification of the worker with the industry. A point of view often develops in which management is seen by the workforce

as a bothersome and unnecessary mediation imposed on the essential

relationship between the workers and the industrial need which

they are fulfilling. Partly as a consequence of nationaliza­

tion, partly as a consequence of the flowering of shop floor

organization, and partly because of other factors, there is

a different attitude toward production among workers in much

Sheffield area industry than I have met in my personal work

experience in the US. One manifestation of this attitude is

the preference for the work-in as the favored form of industrial 249 struggle. In a work-in, workers seize control of production and continue to operate the plant. The most famous example of a work-in is perhaps the Upper Clyde Shipyard work-in in the early 1970’s (Buchan 1972). A similar work-in saved a major BSC steel plant in Sheffield from closure in the early

1970's (Barratt Brown 1972).

Such an attitude toward production is often traceable to developments in workers* pride, confidence in their capabilities, and notions of their rightful and actual place in society— in a phrase, workers* control. Workers' control discussion forms a large part of the formal and informal curriculum; it is almost a Bernsteinian "hidden curriculum "

(1975)» It seems to me that this fact helps explain one of the important links between day release and the workplace. Students are both more responsible and more political in their attitudes toward work. Both of these attitudes are necessary if workers are to be able to deal witk rapid changes in the conditions of their work, like those which accompanied the NPLA referred to above. Desired by management and the national union leadership, the National Power Loading Agreement was a plan to equalize wages throughout the coal industry in exchange for worker agreement to a number of rationalizing steps, including in particular the introduction of power-loading, as opposed to hand-loading, technology in the industry. Out of NPLA, the union got a unified national organization for really the first time, while management got the authority to begin a massive 250 shake-down of the industry, a shake-down which ultimately cut the workforce to 1/3 its former size. NPLA is directly linked to the transformation of industrial struggles in the mining industry from area-wide to nationwide in focus, and miners' leaders like , former vice-president of the

NUM and a Communist, claim that the NPLA is in many ways directly connected to the miners' victories of 1972 and 1974.

Increasingly sophisticated trade union strategies are made possible by a more unified and intellectually alive workforce. Increasing sophistication is both a blessing and a problem for management. The workerforce is more skilled and therefore more productive, but, according to Taylor, the

Yorkshire NOB is convinced that day release is a significant contributory force in the politicization of miners. Yet

Barratt Brown uses the following story to indicate the attitude of management to the courses :

One comment of a high-ranking Coal Board official deserves to be reported at this point. When asked what advantage the Board derived from the day release courses he replied that 'it keeps forty good men in the industry three years longer than they would otherwise have stayed.' In a period of rapid voluntary wastage, that may not have been as unimportant as it sounds (1969:21).

Management's hesitancy to criticize day release publicly may have other sources as well. MacFarlane comments :

Staff jobs with the National Coal Board have also provided a ready outlet for ex-day-release students. Sixteen have taken advantage of that opportunity and taken posts as industrial relations officers, method study engineers, assistant managers for personnel at the colliery level and as colliery deputy (1975: 85). 251

Several industrial tutors pointed out to me in the course of the field study that as unions press for more involvement in the industrial decision-making process, they take on more and more management functions. Education, to the extent it provides a basis for involvement in decision-making, also lays the basis for moving into management. It is therefore quite logical that some workers would take advantage of opportunities to "cross over" to management, their opportunities enhanced by day release. A highly developed political perspective does not necessarily prevent such "defections," either; in a highly politicized Sheffield engineering factory, three successive convenors of shop stewards, all Communist

Party members, took jobs with personnel. While bemoaning such

"turncoat" acts, the more reflective students and tutors with whom I discussed the issue argued that on balance it is better to have ex-workers in such positions than people straight from university with no work experience. Whether one agrees with this point of view or not, it is clear that management derives some clear benefits from day release. I would personally hesitate to condemn such "promotion from the ranks"— I met two exceptional individuals in the field who had had this experience. Having a large number of students on day release clearly changes the nature of the struggle at the workplace, but the evidence available to me indicated some clear benefit to management as well as workers. 252

Effects of Day Release on Educational Involvement

As indicated in the discussion of the history of workers' education in Britain in Chapter Four, the post-war years have been a time of significant change in workers' education. In the Sheffield area, day release students have been integral to this change, and they play an important role at all levels in the local workers' education system which it is the fundamental aim of this dissertation to describe. I got to know personally five former day release students involved in workers' education full-time. They included the new

Yorkshire/Htmfeerside TUC regional education officer (REO) , two

Sheffield day release tutors, and two trade union tutors in local Colleges of Further Education. There were more in similar positions whom I met or heard about.

People in such positions can contribute to the develop­ ment of workers' education both directly through their official, paid work and indirectly through volunteer work. For example, at least one of the five individuals mentioned above was :

*involved, sometimes heavily, in the work of local working class-oriented political organizations, including the Labour Party (and various tendencies within it, including Tribune and Militant) and other groups, like Big Flame and the Communist Party;

*involved heavily in the local WEA, with positions as branch officers, as tutors in Trade Union Studies projects, such as viewers' groups, and as tutors in classes in social and political education run through Local Education Authority Adult Education Centres ;

*Active in their unions ; 253

*Involved in special education development work, as with the development of Trade Union education for women; through the WEA (See Chapter Fourteen);

*Involved in the production of community alternative newspapers, such as the Sheffield Forward and Sheffield Free Press; and in community social groups, like the WoodcraftFolk;

*Involved in local trades' councils and the setting up of a trades' council education sub-committee ;

*Involved in national workers' education organiza­ tions , like the Society of Industrial Tutors (SIT).

This work was additional to important trade union teaching, educational development, and administrative work which was a part of their paid employment.

Other day release students are significantly involved in workers' education in two ways, both as users and providers.

These students struggled for and won the right to day release through their trade union; in this sense, they are simultaneously providers and users. It is important to remember that the very existence of the day release program has significant political meaning. Day release students also use the workers' education system after day release, through attending the

Colleges of Adult Education with a primary orientation toward

the working class, or through going directly on to university.

The question of the nature and extent of use of this aspect of the system— whether it is a "ladder" out of the working class--is of considerable concern. One of MacFarlane's respondents put it this way:

The Sheffield course is basically a good one with the majority of students using their skills to assist the NUM and the working class. However, in so far as 254

the course provides the first ladder into the middle- class via the fulltime education system, I dis­ agree with it (1975:85).

MacFarlane adds :

The 'ladder' mentioned has been used by a total of twenty-two ex-day-release students going on to further full-time education at the adult colleges : Fircroft, Harlech, Ruskin, and the Co-operative College at Loughborough. Five of these students returned to work in the coal industry. Others have taken a variety of jobs outside the mining industry, as lecturers in colleges of further education, as social workers in the public services, or personnel officers in private industry. Three of the ex-coalminers have gained degree qualifica­ tions in the social sciences and five are still at university (1975:85).

If the proportion of all day release students "using the ladder" was the same as the proportion in MacFarlane's sample (22 out of 126), then 17.5% of them would be using the ladder. I would estimate that no more than .1% of employed British workers had attended these colleges in the past 20 years, so it is clear that attendance at day release significantly improves one's chances of such upward advancement in education.

Where the ladder carries one is not as clear as how many people use it, however. I met one student, and heard of others, who had gone to adult college and was now unemployed.

In the chapter on community education, there is a fuller discussion of the role of the Adult Colleges, where it is argued that one should hesitate before concluding that students who attend such schools are to be considered lost to the working class. Many of them, like the five I described above, take jobs within the workers' education system, and the scope of their official and voluntary activities for the movement can 255 be truly impressive. Others take positions as full time officials with unions— they are particularly recruited by the

National Union of Public Employees (NUPE)— and my experience with such working class students who "advance through the union" is that they set high standards as models of selfless servants of the working class. They are, however, perhaps less radically militant and more prone to treat union and industry structures with respect than organizers recruited directly from the credentialized education sector.

As was evident in the comments of the student-turned- tutor quoted in the first chapter of this section, however, there are obvious benefits which derive from using the ladder successfully, and those who use it for personal financial benefit may become dependent upon its rewards. I observed no situation in the field where I could attribute a major role to such personal dependencies in determining what course of action an individual would urge upon a working class group.

Most used the privileges of "not having to work" by working on educational development projects which they explicitly justified (with good reason) in terms of helping to develop a class perspective.

This raises directly the question of day release students as providers of workers' education. In addition to those paid for the work, day release students play an important voluntary role in what they referred to as "the workers' education movement." As discussed in Chapter Sixteen, former 256 steel students in Scunthorpe play an important role in the local branch of the WEA; this is one of the more important factors in making this branch something unique even among the few largely industrial WEA branches. For years, former and current students (like those who came on the WEA classes convened by Science for People) have proven consistently more supportive of voluntary education with a working class orienta­ tion than any other recognizable group. The students on the

Science for People class, for example, took the initiative to organize a similar class among their mates in Doncaster, and they brought in new people from other engineering firms as well. They negotiated the syllabus and secured a venue for the class in the local Trades and Labour Club; they organized recruitment as well. I have already talked about how former students may have a noticeable effect on the educational attitudes of current students. Perhaps the kind of commitment to working class education that can be encouraged by day release is most beautifully illustrated by this comment from one of

MacFarlane's respondents :

I enjoyed the three years at Sheffield— I had been for years interested in adult education. I had been secretary of my WEA local branch and for years I had been voluntary lecturer for the NCLC (National Council of Labour Colleges) and attending summer schools. The course gave me a broader outlook and a sounder grasp of economics and was a refresher course on all the learning of the past. It made me more realistic and gave me a realistic view of the make-up and functioning of society. I am now 71 and still very interested in all fields of local government and national and international politics. I wish that the opportunity had come sooner in life (1975:84). 257

Perhaps the typical involvement of day release students is more like that of the following former student, who played a role in organizing a performance of one of the political theater groups described in Chapter Sixteen. One of his co­ workers described him in the following terms :

The lad who pushed most of the tickets around was a former day release student. He's now a delegate to the union area council and to district council. The course helped him to see that these things are worth tackling, to not say any more, 'it's not for me, but for other people,' He's insistent on reporting back, and he tiries hard to get things across, even though sometimes he would rather be playing bingo.

In sum, then, there is ample evidence that a typical consequence of involvement in day release is continued involvement in workers' education. These ex-students are fortunate to live in an area where there are many such opportunities, both paid and unpaid. In the end there is good reason to agree with a tutor who traced this preference for involvement in educational forms to the consequences of personality development during the course :

Most blokes take a more questioning interest in what goes on around them, like in the newspaper; they check other sources of information. They get involved in changing things, and they develop a need for intellectual stimulation.

In sum, one can say the following things about the effect of day release on student involvement and action.

First, there is pressure for students who come on the course to get involved in a variety of working class organizations.

Many do, and many become more involved than they were in the past. Perhaps the largest number get involved at the local 258 level of the trade union branch or in various aspects of the workers' education system. Many continue and develop their involvement through the union in decision-making at work. Many also work in local government, or in community service. Some become active in the local branches of the Labour Party while others join other working class parties and organizations.

The increased involvement of day release students does not always solve the problems of these organizations, and occasionally, as with the NALGO group, the involvement can

exacerbate existing problems within the organization. As is also the case with my local NALGO example, however, the particular form of day release impact is better seen as more dependent on political economic forces than on particular motivations traceable to day release.

A significant proportion of day release students follow up the course with study at one of the Adult Colleges for working people, and only a small proportion of these go back

to their old job or something similar to their old job in the

industry. Another small proportion, but still significant,

take jobs with management, especially those who work in nationalized industries.

My overall impression is that day release increases

involvement, but the overall political effect of this involve­ ment is still not clear. Trade unions, CLP's, workers'

education organizations, and schemes for increasing worker

participation are not necessarily structures adequate to the 259

achievement of the long-term interest of the working class ; in fact a wide range of working class scholarship and opinion is critical of the ultimate capabilities of these institutional structures. What is the evidence that day release can contribute substantially to the transformation of such structures? Or does it just help existing structures carry out the same general activities with more involvement and participation? NOTES

1 ■ ■ , In the early days of day release, remedial courses for such, individuals were arranged for a year before the actual course began, but these are apparently no longer necessary. Moreover, various community education programs have developed literacy classes in a big way. See Chapter Fourteen. 2 To my knowledge, they did not develop in Yorkshire and Derbyshire. O This group was reading Dennis, et al. (1969), Coal is Our Life, an ethnography of a Yorkshire mining village, while doing this exercise. This also gave their lives further legitimacy.

^It is an example of what Schneider (1968) calls a "dominant symbol." He describes "sex" as the dominant symbol in the domain of kinship, a domain which he later (1972) argues to be non-existent, largely invented by anthropologists; following Bloch (1977) we might describe the domain as "ideological," which is why it is difficult for Schneider to prove his point about "kinship" and "sex." 5 Unlike unions in other British industries, especially engineering, the branch organization and the workplace organiza­ tion in mining are the same; there is no shop steward organiza­ tion other than the branch committeemen. This has come about because the place of residence, the pit village, is defined by the pit, the place of work.

^I was personally able to establish contact with miners concerned with this matter--which, because of the wide­ spread use of hydraulic equipment in "technologized" mining since the power loading agreement of the 1960's, is of crucial importance— because of my research in day release classes.

^The union was reduced to less than half of its former membership through the closure of numerous pits. Q This contrast between Derbyshire and Yorkshire serves to underline a particular problem with trying to determine the effects of day release. The conditions in the two unions are very different; Yorkshire, until recently, suffered under reactionary leadership; Derbyshire has had a left leadership since the war. Yorkshire has been expanding and is now the largest Area in the NUM, with over 67,000 members ; Derbyshire has barely 12,000, less than half the previous membership. Yorkshire pits have more favorable geological conditions than Derbyshire, and are thus likely to stay open longer. The effect

260 261

(Footnote #8 cont'd) of day release upon the two unions is mediated through these different conditions. In the absence of a thorough study of these differences, one can only build a plausible model of the effects of the program in regard to the observable data; this, of course, is the purpose of the present section. Q Valey, I was told, was the kind of working class leader whose first act in London after being elected was to take classes ini elocution. Whether true or apocr^hal, the story shows clearly both the symbolic importance or working class speech and the disdain for the worker who is perceived to have "crossed over" to the middle class. CHAPTER EIGHT

THE EFFECTS OF DAY RELEASE--UNION PRACTICE.

BROADER EFFECTS; CONCLUSIONS

Thus far in this section, I have examined: the structure and pedagogy of day release; its effects on con­ sciousness; its effects on student intellectual abilities, practice, and involvement. All of these kinds; of"data, focused largely on individuals, were gathered or corroborated through field observation and other participatory methods, and they have led to some hypotheses regarding the effects of day release. However, there are still some important issues which remain unresolved. These cluster around the overall political impact of day release. The question of overall political impact has already been raised, and much data regarding it, such as the conviction of NCB officials that day release has politicized Yorkshire miners, has been noted.

I would now like to draw together some of these data through a consideration of the nature of the trade union practice of the unions involved in day release, thereby moving away from the focus on individuals. What can one say about the role of unions involved in day release in the reproduction of working class culture? That is, in particular, do unions involved in day release show any tendency to take innovative

262 263 approaches to the political economic, social, and political conditions in which they find themselves--Is there praxis?

Because of highly complex mediations, it is extremely difficult to trace any casual link between union practice and day release. Rather than searching for causes, focusing on day release and union practice is perhaps better conceptualized as a process of examining the possible structural relations between what are taken to be important variables in the social formation. One examines the available evidence through constructing models to account for observed correspondences, aiming for the general outlines of a plausible model which accounts for the available data. A broader social process will determine the extent to which such ethnographically-derived

"general outline" models are tested further for accuracy.

Based on my empirical research, I feel that the best

"model of general outlines" to account for the relationship between day release and trade union action is one which puts primary stress on an increase in the extent to which trade union practice is theorized. This is true both at the level of the practice of individuals and at the level of group practice, I am therefore arguing that there is significant praxis, and that this praxis is an effective element of the class adjustment to and control over its environment. Praxis is an effective part of its culture, its mode of adaptation.

Put simply, a group of trade unionists theorize more effectively and this effectiveness is manifest in the practice of their unions, unions which participate in day release. 264

The preceding chapters of this section have depicted people and what they do; their intellectual practice and their involvement. What I want to do here is establish a "general outline" or ethnographic model of how and to what extent certain

British trade union practice— that of some unions involved in day release--functions to serve the class interest. Of course, one must be aware of the fact that in general British unions exert an important influence upon the social formation. But my model attributes significance to a number of arguments like the following: The strike victories of miners in 1972 and

1974 are taken as manifestations of what is an often-repeated and broadly accepted commonplace of British politics, that society is largely ungovernable in the face of implacable trade union opposition. The Yorkshire miners played a crucial part in both of these strike victories, and almost all of the higher-level elected leadership of YNUM was on day release either at Sheffield University or Leeds University in a similar program.

In contrast, I observed no theoretical impact--indeed, no participation in the working class movement in Sheffield at all— by the Wire Drawers Union, even though the Sheffield movement was the most intensive focus of my participation and the Wire Drawers were one of the few day release unions with large membership in Sheffield. Thus, field data indicate a broad diversity of day release union practice, from an active involvement in major trade union activities to no apparent influence at all. My model, then, does not stress a high 265 level of praxis for all the unions; rather, the emphasis is on raising the extent of praxis from levels determined by other factors.

The varied political roles of the other unions involved in day release should be noted at this point. After the field research, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) carried out a long industrial action involving the removal of all but the most necessary emergency services. ASLEF and FBU have long been left unions, with Communist Party members and other "lefts" in leading positions; ASLEF exerts an influence on the trade union movement all out of proportion to its size (32,000 members, according to Clegg (1970)) and is heavily involved in trade union education. It is also a prime source of trade union organizers and other full-time officials. NALGO is a union of growing importance, one of the two big white collar unions.

It has organized rapidly over the past few years. NUPE is a very aggressive union, having more than doubled its membership in the past 10 years; during the field period, it exerted the main national leadership and much of the local leadership in the trade union and political movement against cuts in public spending. It carried a resolution against the cuts and against the Labour Government at the Annual Labour Party Conference.

The NUR is a major, older industrial union, and during the

field period, it did important work in projecting a program to maintain an integrated public transport system in the face of pressure to cut the system to save public funds. The Derbyshire

NUM has contributed its share of full-time and volunteer 266 activists to the trade union, political, and workers' educa­

tional movements. Steelworkers, particularly in Scunthorpe, have played a very important role in union shop stewards' committees, as shop and safety stewards, in the local WEA,

and in exerting a left position on the local Labour Party

and keeping it dominant in local government.

Thus the practice of the day release unions varies with

their history, the sectors they organize, etc. They are by and

large active, growing unions ; their opting for day release

indicates that they are something special, cognizant of their own needs, which of course vary from the necessity of instilling

trade union principles into upper-level white collar workers

(NALGO) to preparing for intense industrial strife (FBU).

In what follows, however, my purpose is to establish the hypothesis that despite such variations the main direction of

day release impact upon union functioning has been unitary,

toward the cultivation of intellectual practice within the unions. I will establish this hypothesis by discussing a number

of areas of union practice, offering ideas about how the

character of the practice might have been influenced by day

release.^ The areas of union practice I will discuss include :

leadership, political involvement, formation of union policies

and action, and education and unity.

As a group the tutors were quite adamant about the

influence of day release on the present leadership of many of

the unions, particularly those with a long term relationship

to day release. One tutor put it this way: 267

You now find the leadership of the NUM, both in Yorkshire and Derbyshire, are all ex-students from the course, and they have a commitment to help it carry on, partly from their own experience. By God, it helped them... One may argue how far the increasingly sophisticated response they've made to the big changes inside the union has been, to some extent, helped along by the techniques they've acquired as students on day release, but they were faced with a certain concrete situation, and they're more equipped to deal with it.

The very important interview with Arthur Skargill, President of the Yorkshire NUM, carried in the New Left Review (Skargill

1 9 ‘7:S) is perhaps the best available description of the kinds of "increasingly sophisticated responses" made by the current leadership to the changing conditions within the union.

These changes included: the consolidation of a coherent left wing opposition to the dominant YNUM leadership, which was right-wing and anti-intellectual; organization of a campaign to secure the right for young miners to attend their own union meetings ; the consolidation of an unofficial organization, initially as an unofficial strike committee ; organization of mobile pickets and other tactical innovations ; development of solidarity with other miners and with students and other industrial workers which led to the '72 and '74 victories; and the development of a plan to transform the Labour Party.

There is a self-conscious left wing leadership in charge of both the Yorkshire and Derbyshire NUM; New Left

Review refers to Skargill's views as representing, "an intransigent pursuit of proletarian class interests that has not been seen for many decades " (1975:1)., Since the NUM 268

is really more of a confederation of unions than a single union (the treasury of the YNUM is larger than that of the national organization), the existence of such political leader­

ship is particularly important. The nature of this leadership

is a complex question. For example, it experiences opposition

from two primary sources. In Yorkshire, one of the sources is

the number of representatives on the Area Council who supported

the previous leadership and who are still in a position to block a number of initiatives, including blocking the mobiliza­ tion of the particular pits they represent. One such anti-

Skargill individual was frequently sought out and quoted by the national mass media. The editor of the Yorkshire Miner, an official newspaper for the YNUM organized during the period of the field study, explained the paper as part of the continued attempt to insure channels of communication between the Area

leadership and the rank and file, channels which can by-pass

the right-wing delegates.

The second source of opposition to the elected leader­

ship is the rank and file. Reference has already been made to

Taylor's conviction of a permanent tradition of militant

opposition to leadership in Yorkshire. Though Skargill and

the present area leadership played a large part in fostering

the tradition and are indeed the strongest manifestation of it,

they are still on occasion the target of it as well. Barratt

Brown quotes a student who expresses well this sense of

permanent suspicion: 269

It was a Yorkshire student who told a BBC interviewer that what he's learnt from the course was what a 'right lot of dumplings' his union leaders were (1969:23).

Other suspicions were voiced in more specific terms, as in regard to the problems with getting information on hydraulic fluids discussed in the last chapter. One of the material assets of such a culture of opposition is the educational structure, which keeps miners from different pits in communcation with one another. One speaker at the Skegness school, for example, commented upon how miners, "from schools like this one, at Wortley Hall, or from day release, have learned from each other how incentive schemes are being implemented on a pit by pit basis anyways." One tutor in particular argued that the students on day release represented a threat to the existing leadership— the classes were where the new leadership, which would inevitably replace the present group, would eventually come from. This tutor used the recognition of this threat as reason to proceed slowly and carefully, for example, with choosing topics for discussion by the new student association. As pointed out in the previous chapter, there are also opposition groups with more or less permanent structures, such as the Collier rank and file group, which can provide a focus for dissent from any leadership position.

When the leadership is not following a policy which emphasizes rank and file participation, any opposition, even at a low level, can be interpreted as a threat. One of the tutors argued that at least part of the opposition to the steel courses derived from this source. In his opinion, the course, 270

...did get possibly too far into the issue of bureaucracy with the steel classes, because it began to feed back into the union meetings that the union meetings weren't being run correctly— that there were alternative ways to run a joint committee, other than having the full time officials there all the tiye, you know. The students certainly did bring that to practice through the course, and this set up the first anxiety tremors through the trade union bureaucracy.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that this accurately represents the response of the full time officials of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation (ISTC) and other steel union leadership elements ; they did, after all, unite with BSC to have the courses removed from Extramurals. The relationship of day release and the steel industry— and, in its own way, the experience of day release for the wire drawers— suggest there is no future for day release in a union without room for a vibrant rank and file movement and consequent oppositionist tendencies. Day release functions best when the leadership is political, out in front of the rank and file and pushing it in a coherently-defined direction, but at the same time responsive to the membership, with meaningful mechanisms for determining what the membership feels. Buch political leader­ ship, which sees the union as something more than a device for day-to-day defense of conditions, can give real direction only to the extent that the rank and file is able to perceive the point and respond enthusiastically— in other words, political trade union leadership is limited by the theoretical practice of the membership. 271

The firmest basis of my contention that day release has made a general contribution to the political practice of

British trade unionism is the dynamic relationship between the rank and file in the Yorkshire NUM and the leadership. This dynamic relationship is manifest in a number of ways, including a) articulate support for the policies of the leadership, which

I heard on numerous occasions; b) an absence, even in The

Collier. of general criticism of Skargill and his positions, although particular policies were on occasion objected to; and c) the large amount of evidence, from Taylor (1977) and other sources as well as my own participatory research, that Yorkshire miners participate enthusiastically and in a politically in­ formed manner in the activities of the union. Skargill himself argues that the political leadership of the Yorkshire NUM was responsible for transforming the basic terms of the rank and file/leadership relationship in the mining industry. After years of run-down, pit closures, and redundancies.

The situation was festering, smouldering, and in 1969 spontaneous action in the Yorkshire coalfields sparked off what was to be the start of a fantastic transformation in Yorkshire and indeed in the whole of the coalfield.... The miners' union was pressing for the right of its surface workers to have an eight-hour day (T)he Yorkshire miners had taken a decision that if there was nothing forthcoming from...talks in London, then the miners in Yorkshire would take some sort of action. Well, of course, Alf (later Lord, Robens, head of the NCB— DH) had heard these sorts of threats before, and he wasn't bothered about a few miners in Yorkshire making threats. Then on Saturday morning when we got the reply, the Yorkshire miners took a decision unanimously, to strike from Monday. The effect was electric. The Yorkshire miners struck to a man. I mean this is something many other districts, many other unions cannot understand. If 272

we gave an instruction to come out on strike tomorrow, they would come out. There would be no argument, they would come out on strike. They may well ask a question afterwards: 'Well, what is this all about? ' But they would trust their union leader­ ship sufficiently to say 'All right, if they say we have to come out, then the reasons must be good enough for us to come out. ' You have a leadership you can trust. The strike took place. It was obvious to us in Yorkshire that if we had left it to the official leadership in Yorkshire, nothing would have been done, could have been done. ...We formed an unofficial strike committee...And the first thing we did was to ask ourselves, first of all, was every pit in Yorkshire out? And the answer then, 'yes'., . . Then the next: step was to get out every other pit in Britain if we could.. .. We decided that the best way that we could produce an effective stoppage was to have a rapid mobile picket (1975:8-9).

Since 1969, Skargill has been elected President of the YNUM and the unofficial structure is now largely official. Yet the same sense of confidence in leadership, the tactical innovativeness, and the willingness to take positions of leadership in the movement have continued, consolidated through several successful national campaigns. Skargill explains his own theory of leadership in the following terms :

...CT)here have been tremendous strides forward in Yorkshire in the miners' union. It's been done because we have a left-progressive leadership that has been willing to stand up and say 'no' to the Coal Board, that has been prepared to fight for those principles and aims we believe in. It may be a question of transport, a question of a few shillings deducted out of a wage packet, or a question of transferring some workers to a different pit. These do not appear to some people to be bound up with and connected to the longer term revolutionary aims of the movement. I would call those people very short-sighted; they've got blinkers on. It's precisely because we are concerned about those things that we have transformed this coalfield. It's precisely because we have that sort of leader­ ship that a delegation is going to visit China and 273

another to Cuba. It is precisely because of our experience that we have the miners involved in protest marches, demonstrations, and calls for strike action for the Shrewsbury Two.2 You would never have got this Six years ago. For it's the influence of militant leadership, a result of positive leadership, iven in a situation where the miners can see, day gy day, where we are and what we are doing. .. .The fact of being able to achieve all that we have won with Marxist, progressive, left-wing leadership strengthens our movement. If you've got a revolu­ tionary leadership that can't even win wage increases, but can go on platforms all over Britain on the Irish question and a thousand and one other things, the workers won't have any faith in that leadership. That's been one of the problems in the past in this union and one of the problems in the past in many other unions, progressive leaders who do not know how to fight properly for their members (1975:27).

The statement stresses knowing how to win trade union demands,

and is a good presentation of the "enlightened" militancy, as

opposed to "bloody-mindedness" stressed in the discussion of

effects of day release on class consciousness. In important

ways, the leadership philosophy expressed by Skargill has

important parallels with the pedagogical principles which

underlie day release.

In terms of political involvement, much has already

been said about the unions involved in day release. The vital

emic conception here is that of the union, rather than the

political party, as one of the tools if not the primary tool of

intervention of the working class in the struggle for power in

civil society. This attitude helps account for, among other

. things, the peculiar lack of involvement in some CLP ' s pointed

out by Taylor. Another point he made was that, although unions

officially sponsor a number of parliamentary candidates, there 274 is almost no attempt to hold them to account. Even in the midst of the '72 and '74 struggles, the miners made no attempt to communicate with the over 40 miner-sponsored HP's.

This political attitude was also evident at the

Skegness School. Numerous speeches laid out the difficulties for a Labour Party government in a time of economic crisis.

Responses to these arguments alternated between a) blaming the failures of the Party to maintain a consistent working class politics on the large number of middle class individuals within it; and b) arguing that the political struggle should be abandoned in favor of the trade union struggle: "Let the

Tories in and we'll smash them again like we did in '74," as one miner argued.

This ambivalence toward union involvement in political structures as unions is marked throughout the British political process. Unions can and do exert a powerful influence; It is argued in Chapter Eleven, for example, that the leadership of the largest unions reconstructed the Labour Party-Trade Union alliance on the basis of Workers' Control ideology, for example. At the same time, the TUC, during and after the field period, has shielded the Labour Government from direct attacks on the cuts in public spending, most noticeably that of the

Fire Brigades Union.

The problems of political involvement on both the national and local level are largely a consequence of the difficulties which follow from the nature and history of the 275

Labour Party, or "politics" in the narrow sense of elections and government. In a broader sense, the unions are indeed involved in politics, if politics is seen as a broad search for the attainment of working class hegemony. Again, the

Yorkshire miners provide the best example of this kind of involvement. In general, they urge broad unity within the movement under working class trade union leadership. Skargill describes a particularly striking example of this unifying influence in the midst of the 1972 miners' strike, where flying pickets were used again to stop the transport of coal already mined :

What happened was we sent our scouts in to the East Anglia area prior to the strike. I didn't even know where East Anglia was. How do we contact East Anglia? Who do we know? Then there was a message: 'We can provide accommodation and assistance.' It was from Essex University...(F)or two or three weeks, we billeted at Essex University about a thousand Yorkshire miners in a fantastic display of solidarity. We showed to the university students a degree of discipline and organization which they had probably read about in their Marxist books, but had not seen for themselves. The first thing that we did was to tell them straight that we were in charge and that we would determine what we did, because we knew how to operate. We weren't being facetious or bigoted, but we knew exactly what we were doing. They agreed. We had the International Marxist Group, the International Socialists, the Workeiô' Revolutionary Party, and all the other organizations coming together in ^ a t they called a broad left alliance, a united front, at the university and agreeing with us that they would have to sink their differences; that we would have to fight one common enemy and that we had no time to discuss whether Trotsky said X, Y, or Z in 1873. . . . Some of our boys were very comfortable there. We had difficulty in getting them home. This was an absolutely tremendous experience and what was happening was this: our people were becoming politically educated and were becoming aware of what , ^ , 276

the class war waa. In a matter of days, they were changing. Never mind about a thousand lectures, this was it ! ... The barriers were completely down and the unity was there for anyone to see. That was, I think, probably one of the most remarkable experiences that I have ever had, in the sense of a mass picket (1975:12-13).

This is an example of the kind of political leadership which the miners would like to exert regularly on the working class movement, leadership which brings together the sectarian groups to pursue concrete working class goals and objectives. Miner interest in the campaign to allow constituency recall of MB's may someday even mean a real NUM involvement in the Labour

Party.

This sense of political practice is obviously related closely to the formation of union poTicies and actions. Open­ ness to broad areas of influence is particularly important if one argues that the trade union is to be the primary vehicle for the class to have an impact on the social formation. Con­ stitutionally at least, British trade unions are designed to give the membership the dominant voice in determining policy, through election of delegates to various meetings, including an annual or biennial conference. These bodies make the major policy decisions for the union as an organization, and the policies are as likely to refer to a broad range of social issues as they are to narrow trade union concerns. Of course, the extent to which these bodies reflect rank and file opinion

is to be determined empirically, since like other large organizations union bureaucuracies have developed powerful means of influencing these decisions. 277

I have suggested (see Chapter Ten) that a good test of the democracy of trade union policymaking is the extent to which policy decisions are based on the kind of working knowledge which is generated by workers at the shop-floor level,

The kind of response by full time officials to the initiatives of shop stewards in steel described above, when stewards raised questions about meeting procedure, is the kind of evidence which in my opinion is decisive in regard to the question of union democracy. Now day release students gain a certain amount of practice at dealing with such matters in classes. When they come to branch meetings to "make noise with a purpose," they are ultimately involving themselves directly in the formulation of policy for the organization and by extension Of the whole working class movement. How effective are such pressures from the rank and file?

In my opinion, a good case can be made that such pressures have been effective within the Yorkshire NUM.

Tracing the history of these pressures is interesting from the point of view of indicating how rank and file pressure can transform a union. There had been a long history of left wing criticism of the leadership of YNUM, but it was not until the late 1950's (five years after the start of day release, or about the time that the first group which was not composed of elected officials was completing the course), that this opposition crystallized into a coordinated force. Skargill describes the process in these terms : 278

At one period we had nine left-wingers or Communists in the Area Council meeting and yet the role that they played, brilliant though it was...was in fact, insignificant. They were never able to exert sufficient pressure, they were never able to push through those resolutions which were necessary to change the union. It wasn't until the 1959-65 era that the left in the coalfield began to dee the necessity for some kind of serious organization, to put forward coordinated policies, as opposed to individual, non-coordinated policies. In other words, you had to try and formulate a common policy for the whole left movement (1975:7-8).

This left policy led to a number of pit based militant actions, according to Taylor, actions aimed both at the Coal Board and at the bureaucratic character of the union. When, in 1967, an opportunity came, the left network was able to provide an alternative leadership structure in a strike situation and thereby prove its ability. The further coordination of policies and the history of established working relationships led to a functioning rank and file leadership, which eventually became the ^ jure leadership as well.

Although I attended the NUPE annual conference, to which students involved in union education were elected as delegates, I perceived no significant interaction between these delegates and the SWP-identified rank and file caucus.

This was true even though several of the Yorkshire delegates presented views which dissented from the official leadership's position. (For a number of reasons, I was critical of the sectarian functioning of the rank and file group in NUPE).

There are of course great differences between the policies being pursued by the leaderships of the 1950's YNUM and 279 and contemporary NUPE, and there has been much less time for day release to have an educational effect on NUPE than there was even in the 1959-65 period in the YNUM. Moreover, miners differ importantly from local authority manual workers. Yet consideration of the role of the YNUM rank and file suggests that day release does provide a forum for rank and file contact— a forum which, unlike the NUPE rank and file caucus, is not mediated totally through the perspective of a national political organization and thus has the potential of establishing a broad base. This form provides a framework for the expression of oppositional opinion and for the formulation "from the ranks" of common policies and support. It does seem clear that if rank and file caucuses like the one in NUPE are to really transform the union, some mechanism must be found for achieving this broader perspective under leadership recognized as more "authentically working class."

The transformation of the YNUM suggests that rank and file pressure can have a positive effect on working class cultural reproduction. The correlation of the first coordina­ tion of this left opposition with the completion of the day release course by the first groups of rank and filers suggests a meaningful day release connection. Moreover, there is also a clear, pedagogically-justified concentration in the course on the work place concerns of the students ; day release functions as a kind of forum for the reasoned, leisurely consideration of various long and short term alternatives facing the union. This 280

was the justification actually articulated by the Secretary

of the Derbyshire miners who opened the Skegness school, and

this was the opinion of the role of the school expressed by

the branch president quoted above. The classroom emphasis on

building a feeling of solidarity and support is particularly

important in allowing the expression of unpopular opinions,

those which run against the grain. The classes help transform

the grumbling criticism expressed over a pint with one * s mates into the cogent position put forward in the branch meeting, and there seems a strongly plausible connection between this transformation of intellectual practice and the

identification of a group of similar viewpoints. At the same

time, the course helps to provide a framework on which to hang consideration of various tactical and strategic questions.

The belief that connections like these are significant was wide spread among day release students and tutors.

One can build similar plausible connections between

the discussions on day release and the kinds of issues raised within the union movement during the field period. Within coal, a major campaign was mounted over the issue of early retirement for miners, a campaign which aroused considerable attention and sympathy in the mass media and skillfully raised

the kinds of "conditions of work" issues which were alternatives

O to wages issues. A dramatic pit-head ballot, followed closely by television, supported industrial action and demonstrated the miners' conviction to turn to it unless progress 281

was made on this demand; after a positive vote, proposals which had previously been rejected as "impossible" were used as a

basis for compromise. The whole procedure was one of the few

examples of a successful trade union campaign within the

confines of the social contract. Reference has been made

above to the discussion between miners and steel workers

over productivity bargains and the detailed critique which

developed in their conversations. But unions involved in

day release were concerned with issues which went far beyond

typical collective bargaining. The Yorkshire NUM had played a major role in the "Get Britain Out" campaign against the Common

Market, and Skargill appeared on a number of platforms during

the field period with a highly political critique of nuclear

power. As indicated, these unions were among the most active

in supporting other trade union initiatives in the political

arena, such as the mass demonstration against the cuts and

the equal pay strike at Trico. As I was leaving the field,

the Yorkshire NUM was organizing a caravan of coaches to join

a mass picket in support of embattled strikers at Grunwicks.^

I therefore conclude that there is ample evidence that

at least some of the unions involved in day release have

developed a vibrant, effective dialectical approach to leader­

ship, that they are actively involved in politics--although

more or less exclusively in the form of direct union action— ,

and that the process of policy formation within the unions shows

an openness to rank and file perceptions and influence. One of 282

the clearest indications that these characteristics are related to day release is the fact that they have developed in con­ junction with a clear emphasis on the importance of union education. After coming to power in the YNUM, Skargill initiated, and the union supported, a proposal to double the number of students on the day release course; about YNUM education in general, he comments :

We have now launched in Yorkshire the best education scheme any trade union in Britain has got. There's no other union that's got the same schemes that we have. Do you know how many people we've got at university in any one year? One hundred and eighty for a three-year course each year. That's the sort of thing we've got...The whole system of education is evolving and wider questions being explored but we never lose touch with conditions in the coalfield (1975:28).

He makes an explicit connection between this educational program and his view of leadership:

The problem of some of our trade-union leaders is that they think they can sit in an executive chair, and can dictate policy and that will be it. I don't believe you can. I believe you've got to win the rank and file and you've got to show by example. I believe that far too often we've had leadership in the union that has been a bit remote and a bit divorced from the everyday problems of the membership. I'm at the pit head every week. That is the only way to keep in touch (1975:28).

The two watchwords of the union approach to education might well be "unity and struggle." In building both of these, day

release has an obvious part. The ability of the NUR and ASLEF

to carry on a joint campaign to defend the rail system may

have something to do with their cooperation on education. The

discipline necessary to avoid craft vs. industrial union rivalry

was certainly enhanced by experiences like the following which 283

took place on a joint ASLEF-NUR class. Here, the tutor deliberately structured a discussion of the "fors and againsts" of craft and industrial unions. In this discussion, students were compelled to "come out of themselves and look objectively at the arguments, not relax into prejudice," as the tutor later described it, and the results strengthened mutual understanding.

In terms of struggle, Skargill again states eloquently the role of education. He makes the following comments within the context of criticizing both those leftists who would argue that a wage battle is not a political battle and those academics who take a piecemeal approach to workers' control:

...But you see, you will not get common ownership of the means of production, you will not get real control of the society in which we live, unless you commit and convince the working class of the need to struggle. You will not convince the working class of the need to struggle unless you show then by example... that struggle is a result of our legitimate claims...(S)truggles convince workers of the need for real control over society (1975:25).

In sum, I have attempted to demonstrate certain structural regularities between involvement in day release (or withdrawal from it) and trade union action (or inaction). I have concentrated on the evidence of more obvious and direct connections ; this, of course, is a consequence of the kind of evidence my field methods (participation in program and move­ ment) led me to perceive. Even though the evidence is not

"complete" it is obvious that day release has a different impact on different unions. To account for this difference, one tutor suggested that the impact of day release was dependent 284

upon both the industrial-community milieu of the workers and the nature of their union. In other words, the strong community context and the repressive nature of the NUM combined to create conditions for a maximal day release impact. In the opinion of several tutors, steelworkers lacked the strong community base which would support the kind of long-term struggle necessary to transform their union; ultimately, they lost the day release course in its more independent form. The Wire

Drawers were a weak union in a declining industry, deriving their membership from a dispersed urban population, and it appears that day release had little real impact in this situation. If these hypotheses are correct, they lead to the conclusion that the impact of any particular form of workers' education is mediated through the dialectic relationship of all the forces shaping working class symboling, on the one hand, and the dynamics of the political economy, on the other.

OTHER PROGRAM IMPACTS

I have described the impact of day release on student/ worker consciousness, on their involvement, and on their practice, and I have talked about the practice of their unions. These impacts of day release are those which are mediated through students, but the program has other structural influences as well. Any overall assessment of program impacts would be incomplete without some consideration of these other influences.

I shall discuss them briefly under the following headings : the 285

role of the tutors in the working class movement; the rein­ forcement of research on and study of working class culture; the influence on the TUC educational program; influence on adult education; the influence on organizing the system of workers education; and influence on the state and the political economy.

1. Each of the tutors during the field period— and all past tutors that I heard about--was very active in some part of the working class movement. The kinds of activities covered a range similar to that described above for the five former day release students-turned-tutors. They help find candidates (especially former students) for positions as school governors or on public committees ; they are active in their unions and get elected to the local trade's councils

(in Sheffield they actively helped tip the balance against right wing control in the late '50's); they stimulate student critique of their unions ; they work with and through the

Workers' Educational Association, particularly in providing trade union, social, and political education; one past tutor is now a Sheffield area left-wing MP; they mediate between various sectors of the working class movement. A good example of the scope and nature of this mediation is the following relatively inconsequential but revealing political incident.

At a Sheffield "aggregate" meeting of the International

Socialists (now SWP), a day release tutor raised the following points. First, that an area Constituency Labour Party had, upon encouragement of one of the members of its management 286

committee (who also happened to be a day release tutor) decided to contribute % 10 to the unofficial, IS-identified

"right to work" campaign. Second, that the individual involved had a request to make of those in IS. This concerned the fact that, despite passage of resolutions, the Labour Party was not coming through on its commitment to help pay the court fines levied against the local Clay Cross Councillors for resisting the Tory's Housing Finance Act, Would the members of the IS raise resolutions in their unions to remind the

Labour Party of its commitment?

This is just one example of how the network of day release tutors promotes a tendency toward unity in the working class movement. An understanding of the desirability of such unity is one element common to both tutors and students on day release. Building such unity is a necessary part of the work of day release tutors, particularly their work in organizing day release classes. It is clear, for example, that the way day release classes have been organized in the past is largely through the activation of a number of forms of organizational support— resolutions in the unions, pressure on the employers by shop stewards' committees, representations to government agencies These elements are mobilized for support through the network of relationships established by the tutors in the context of the kind of political work described above, as, for example, using the CP network in setting up the steel courses.

By its very existence, and in fighting for its survival as a 287 form of workers' education, day release typically exerts a unifying influence on the working class movement. This is the case despite the considerable political diversity among the individual tutors.

2. Similarly, the day release program has a powerful effect reinforcing the study of and encouraging working class culture. Tutors actively encourage participation in the

Yorkshire Miner's Gala, a celebration of the working class culture and life style of the pit village, described in Chapter

Sixteen. They encourage student writing and initiative and, through the integration of aspects of working class culture into the pedagogical content of the classes, they provide a powerful stimulus to the preparation of educational materials aimed at working class people and written by them.^ They generate much material on working class culture in the classes, but what happens to this material is a matter of individual tutor concern and I personally observed little of the informa­ tion being conveyed back through the union movement. It was my conviction that this failure to maximize fully the "education up" potential of day release is related to the political diversity alluded to above.

3. Chapter Eleven documents the specific impact of day release on the evolving educational program of the TUC. In general, this impact has been in the direction of a more educational rather than narrow training content, longer courses, more advanced, if more difficult, levels of course work, and 288

a broad focus to include all membership in union education, not just shop stewards and branch officials. The TUC has indicated a desire to have Sheffield bear particular responsi­ bility for training TUC tutors, even though, at least in the opinion of one tutor, the TUC is critical of day release as a

"ladder." This proposal was being debated at the time of the field study, but debate was not proceeding rapidly, at least in part as a consequence of controversy over the most desirable relationship between day release and the TUC.^

4. Day release has played a significant role in shaping the social perception of Adult Education, particularly in reversing the trend described above which was fast removing any particular commitment to working class education from the scope of Adult Education in Britain. Day release has helped keep alive the Tawney tradition in adult education by demonstrat­ ing vividly the existence of a need for working class education and how that need can be met.

The hostility to working class education of the university environment was mentioned in the brief discussion of the history of day release in the first chapter of this section; the latest manifestation of this hostility was the attempt to impose a reorganization scheme upon the Department of Extramural Studies. Although tutors in the Department worked hard to protect the interest of the day release program in the reorganization, their political diversity obviated a trade union-type response to this reorganization during the 289 time I was in the field. Negotiations were proceeding at the time I left, so I can say little about the final outcome.

In spite of this hostility, day release has nonetheless had an impact even on the conception of the role of universities in adult education. The Report of a Working Party on Industrial

Studies, convened through an official body called the

Universities Council for Adult Education, stressed that, for the working party,

...the fundamental concern was with the establishment of the proper priorities in a major expansion of the role of the universities in Industrial Studies. . . . (T)he special contribution of universities in trade union studies was the possibility of combining face-to-face teaching with research into particular unions and industries and the preparation of teaching material for wider use and especially for teacher training. ...It was widely agreed (by the working party) that a key research resource in Industrial Studies was the individual and collective experience and knowledge of the students (ig75;l'-2r:— ------Tutors from day release, of course, were involved in the drafting of the report, which would have a major impact on any expansion of university adult education.

5. Day release has had a major impact on the recogni­ tion and mobilization of what this dissertation refers to as

"the system of workers' education" (Chapter Four). Through the attempt to expand and defend the day release program, the tutors of day release have helped stimulate a particular interest

in the broader social outlines of the experiences shaping worker

consciousness. The existence of the day release program has been intimately involved with changes of form in the "system" 290

in Sheffield including the virtual passing away of old-style

WEA classes in mining villages on politics and economics and of trade union day and summer schools. At the same time, day release has stimulated newer forms such as the evening viewing groups for Trade Union Studies programs, the formation of a joint union education committee in Scunthorpe, the organiza­ tion of the new Northern College described in Chapter Fifteen, and the programs of community education discussed in Chapter

Fourteen. One tutor described day release itself as a new form of interventionist institution in working class education, and its impact on both the local and national "system" is obvious.

Like the WEA tutor/organizer, the day release tutor has a double job, both to teach and organize. Also like the WEA tutor/organizer, the organizing aspect of this work is carried out largely on an independent basis. While it appeared to me that such day release organizing work had been done more collectively in the past, one tutor disputed this claim, saying that perhaps I overly romanticized the past. It was certainly the case that my own attempts to develop an advanced level health and safety course met with little collective support and enthusiasms from the day release tutors as a group despite an acknowledged need for such a course. On another occasion, a lack of unified understanding and response on the part of tutors led to a badly strained relationship with another significant local providing body; again political diversity seemed to block any collective effort to remedy the situation. 291

While day release tutors did participate in the early activities

of the Sheffield Worker's Education Group, there was little

enthusiasm for it; one tutor expressed doubts as to what day

release tutors could learn from such a group. Each of these

events, though some of them are doubtless partly the consequence

of the limitations of my own abilities as an organizer, indicates

some significant problems deriving from the independent style

of day release organizing. One tutor claimed that, although a proposal was made to develop a campaign to defend the steel

courses by mobilizing student sentiment, a decision was made

to fight the issue through applying pressure through official

channels.

All of these events had consequences that seem to me to be

structurally related to the diversity of political views among

the tutors. As an organizer, I see such diversity as a

handicap upon the ability of the program to reformulate the

system of workers' education in order to do a better job of

assisting the classPs ability to reproduce its culture; it also

seemed to encourage competitive organizational turf-building

(see Chapter Fourteen). At the same time, I recognize that

such diversity serves a real educational function; differing

opinions among the tutors provide concrete examples to students

of the necessity of figuring out things for themselves.

6. Day release appears to have even had some effects

on the nature of the British state and political economy. Day

release tutors have been invited to give testimony to various 292

national bodies such as the Bullock Commission on Industrial

Democracy and the Council on Industrial Relations, and their testimony has been reflected in reports, laws, and regulations.

MacFarlane provides one view of the character of this impact in his evaluation of the program:

The National Coal Board and the National Union of Mineworkers have every reason to be proud of their cooperation in this pioneering venture of worker day- release. They have set an example of working together for the wider interest of the community which could be usefully followed by other employers and trade unions and noted by the government (1975:86).

Taylor connected the day release program to recent developments in relations between trade unions and the state; he also claimed that Unions have become a permanent part ôf the state. Tutors at the Skegness school presented a range of opinions regarding the effects of these developments on the economy. Various left and trade union platforms were the occasion for discussion of the obvious development of the involvement of unions in the state; many echoed the view of students on day release that the new relationship was fraught with danger and definitely not a "Third Trade Union Charter." Others stressed the increased protections which accrued to the trade union movement. All agreed that the relationship was of a qualitatively different nature than that of the past.

The Future of Day Release

At a number of points in the discussion above, reference was made to the extent to which it appeared that day release might have difficulty in the future. In fact, a number of 293

forces were conjoining at the time of the field study to help create this situation. These included:

1) the fact that 1976-77 was in general a difficult time for the British working class movement, primarily since no force in the movement seemed capable of reversing policies— in particular, cuts in public services— which were definitely harming the class; worse still, the policies were being carried out by a government which had a right to be governing in the name of the working class;

2) a university decision to appoint a Professor from outside the department, when an excellent internal candidate was available;

3) university plans to reorganize the department, the effect of which was very unclear and which were met, at least initially, with unfocused hostility;

4) the continued failure to expand day release into the Sheffield engineering industry, despite intensive efforts;

5) the fact that one of the costs of expansion into public services had been a curtailment of the course length (NALGO, NUR, ASLEF, and NUPE) and content (especially NALGO);

6) the fact that the National Government's Department of Education and Science had gone on record support­ ing a shift of the center of all industrial education in Sheffield to the Sheffield Polytechnic;

7) the fact that the TUG Regional Education Officer saw little prospect of locating much of the TUG shop stewards' training with Extramurals, other than occasionally piloting a new course, as a consequence of strong demands that such work go to the Technical Golleges. Moreover, even some of the work at the techs had been shifted to the WEA simply because this was cheaper and the TUG budget was extremely thin. Tutors from Extramurals did not attend area TUG educational briefings during the field period;

8) the existence of continued strained relationships with some working class educational bodies, and the existence of only tenuous relations with others, such as the local trades' council ; this is 294

perhaps related to the failure of a departmentally based trade union studies unit to generate sufficient interest; the absence of any unitied approach among the tutors to the developing TUG educational scheme, with some tutors convinced that the TUG scheme was a betrayal of the basic principles of day release, while others felt that there were real prospects for overcoming some of the difficulties by working positively with the TUG. The existence of under­ lying political differences, of which the conflict over the TUG program was the most vivid manifestation, hampered attempts to develop a collective approach to the resolution of these difficulties.

These difficulties must be viewed in relation to some signifi- cant positive developments and strengths, however ;

1) the fact that the program had achieved such national leadership in adult and working class education, and that it could be justly proud of the kinds of accomplishments described in this section;

2) the opening of the new Northern Gollege, which was quite likely to be the focus of much work by day release industrial tutors, especially since the principal of the Gollege is from day release;

3) developments in the Scunthorpe NUPE course, especially the fact that for the first time TUG endorsement had been attained for an extended (two, and possibly three year) educational course; most importantly, this included a major section on developing student skills, something which all the tutors agreed was essential for day release;

4) TUG interest in Sheffield Extramurals as a tutor- training center, which implied some form of long­ term TUG commitment to the day release program;

5) the fact that major research work continued to be carried out through the department ;

6) the fact that student interest, especially in the mining courses, remained strong; one tutor mentioned the possibility of a further expansion of the Yorkshire course. 295

Conclusion; A Working Class Perspective

In essence, the purpose of this section has been a) to present a detailed picture of the kind of data obtainable through participatory, ethnographic methods about the kinds of theoretical issues raised in the first part of this thesis; building understanding of and confidence in the method is essential to identifying the social processes and structural relationships which must be integrated into theoretical schema before major issues, such as the source of class-related cultural differences, can be resolved; b) to present material adequate to allow the reader to determine for him-or herself whether day release manifests a working class perspective; c) to draw some hypotheses to account for the data. I have made my own opinion clear: It is more useful in more important circumstances to see the program as manifesting such a perspec­ tive than to see it as not manifesting such a perspective.

Such a conclusion is reached largely through the dialectical

interchanges of field research, something particularly true

in this case because of the conscious interjection of a dialectical approach into the field methodology. It is difficult, if not impossible, to recount how such a conclusion

is reached, let alone to communicate all the desirable qualifications, the nuances, and areas of remaining doubt.

Nonetheless, a summary will be attempted, by listing first

the strongest criticisms which were raised against attributing 296

a class perspective to the day release program and then by listing the strongest arguments for attributing such a pers­ pective.

Criticisms of the program from a working class perspec­ tive include :

1. The absence of a mechanism for developing a collec­ tive approach out of the diversity of political opinion among the staff. Several consequences of this absence have been identified above, including how the absence leads to an individualist or "private caucus" style in organizing work, how it sows misunderstanding and disunity in the system of workers' education, and how it discourages leadership and initiative.

2. The elitist tendencies implicit, if not inherent, in the symbol which mediates the various theoretical contradic­ tions in day release pedagogy: the worker intellectual. A developed appreciation of the complexity of issues is helpful to classroom discussion, especially in the relative freedom of day-long classes stretched over a three-year period, where all opinions really can have equal value. Virtuosity in dealing with complexity in an intellectual manner— that is, the various forms of symboling skill generally known as "expertise"— can, however, provide the basis for an intellectual bureaucracy.^

Convenors of shop stewards in big auto plants, I was told, had become effective cogs in a union/management bureaucracy, rather than staying effective leadership of shop floor, grass roots interests. An industrial researcher spoke disparagingly of a 297

"uses of information road to revolution": that is, the illusory notion that a "fundamental shift in the balance of power in society toward working people and their families" can be significantly advanced merely by sharp, intelligent practice around a bargaining table.

3. The ladder into the middle class which robs the working class of its leadership. While it may be true that working class social practice pushes up the ladder as much as day release pulls people up it, as discussed in Chapter Fifteen, the fact remains that many do "cross over," either into various professional positions, or they betray the class from inside its organizations. Moreover, elitist objections to the kinds of social practice which have served class solidarity in the past have been raised by day release Students ; renegade workers are the ones most likely to "ridicule" their ex-mates most severely.

In sum, while the disunity among the tutors may be the gravest weakness of the program in a time of rapid change in the system of workers' education, the chief dangers of its continued functioning are that a new form of "bureaucratic misleadership" or "bent leadership" may be the result.

In contrast, among the strongest arguments for seeing the program as having a working class perspective are:

1. the great relevance of the syllabus to the obvious needs of the broad working class movement, particularly to making trade unions more effective champions of the class interest. The Yorkshire 298

miners must be the best positive case, while the loss of the steel courses makes a similar point rather more negatively. Many working class activists agreed with the essence of the sentiment expressed by one of their number, who claimed that day release had "changed the face of the labour movement in Sheffield."

2. the tremendous power and innovativeness of the pedagogical practice of the program, which, when properly presented, has as much to offer the world movement for social justice as the pedagogy of Paulo Freire.8 An important aspect of this pedagogy is the extent to which the cultural practice of the working class itself becomes both the object of study and the motivational basis for the mode of educational production.

3. the extent to which day release has stimulated and transformed the system of workers' education in Sheffield and Britain generally. Through making a direct contribution to the intellectual practice of the working class movement on a number of levels, day release has had a strong positive effect on the capabilities of the local working class culture to reproduce itself.

I clearly see the statements supportive of a class perspective as more telling than those stressing critical perspectives. I see the weight of the evidence presented . regarding social process and structural correspondence as heavily inclined toward a positive assessment of day release from a broad working class perspective. In essence, the criticisms raised are largely theoretical or anecdotal, not based on any structured analysis of the concrete practice of day release. Assessment of working class reproduction must be based on empirical analysis rather than the doctrinaire manipulation of symbols themselves manipulated by more than one class. In my opinion, one would have a difficult time 299

finding several clear examples of "bureaucratic misleadership" or "robbed leadership" traceable more or less directly to day release.

To put the matter positively: there are several senses in which day release makes the "great class divide" in Britain more permeable, but surely one of them must be admired. This is the one which helps the working class to become conscious of the nature of its alienation from the middle class and, thereby, to incorporate into itself the "best" of middle class culture. The results of scientific research on industrial health and safety; the results of research into social processes in other nations ; the development of special languages more appropriate to the analysis of various organizational and technical matters; the historical record of past social forma­ tions— these, rather than artistry, architecture, and platitudi­ nous aphorisms are what the working class on day release chooses to appropriate from the middle class. Most importantly, the classes help put the working class in a position to be selective and to choose.

In a day release class, the working class students develop confidence in their collective ability to deal with the middle class. For, while an example of what is generally held to be quintessentially middle class (a university lecturer) is admitted to their midst, over the three years they learn to relate to this foreign being; this takes place on the workers' own terms, dealing with the problems they pose. In this way. 300

the fact that "class is not abandoned at the classroom doorstep" is integrated directly into the pedagogy. Even the differences in class background and cultural practice among the tutors—

\diich did have something to do with the political diversity within the program— provide a nice counterpoint for the day release students, who learn that on occasion class background may, in fact, lead away from understanding of working class interest. The tutors from working class backgrounds live the middle class/working class contradiction in a most vivid and instructive way.

Day release mediates the cultural contradiction between the working class and the middle class, enabling the working class to appropriate skills and information to itself which it will need if it is to attain real control of its cultural reproduction. Surely, a frozen repetition of the ways the working class has traditionally dealt with its condition cannot adequately meet new, changing conditions,

conditions consequent to developments in the capitalist political economy ; to hold otherwise is a form of fetishism.

Perhaps it is because as an outsider, so many of whose habits and inclinations were seen as foreign and equated with

the middle class, I experienced the contradiction between the working class and the middle class so sharply that I also

perceive the positive role in mediating this contradiction 9 equally sharply. 301

The negative effects of refusing to analyze this contradiction were spelled out well by Audrey Wise, left Labour

MP from the working class Southwest Coventry constituency. At the Skegness school, she responded to a student comment about the sources of the failure of the Parliamentary Labour Party to govern in the interest of the working class ;

Student— The basic problem with the Labour Party is the large number of middle class people who are in it, especially those who are MP's; we're going to have to get them out before the Labour Party will truly serve the working class.

Wise— I am strongly against that position. Look, I come from a working class family, but I went from being a shop girl to working for a union. Now, I'm an MP. My daughter is going to university. Does that make me the enemy?

Jack Jones, whenever he's in trouble over the social contract, or something, castigates the CLP's for being middle class. He does it because maybe they've supported resolutions which criticize the same policies we've been condemning here.

It's not who they are, but who puts them there and what kind of socialists they are that matters. NOTES

1 Establishing the usefulness of this hypothesis is therefore more of a logical than a statistical process. It is because understanding the extent of the theoretical practice of trade unions is so important as a general question that the attempt is justified. 2 Construction workers arrested for picketing under the Industrial Relations Act. 3 The ability to raise wage demands was strictly limited by the "social contract," described in Chapter Eleven.

^Upon returning home from the field, I heard a bizzare tale involving police harassment of the editor of Yorkshire Miner, arrested outside Grunwicks. Alleging police threats on his family, the editor fled to East Germany and was exceedingly reluctant to return.

^In this regard, the program makes a substantial con­ tribution to the kinds of problems identified by, but, in my opinion, inappropriately conceptualized by, Basil Bernstein.

^It is in fact quite possible to make the argument that the day release program has stimulated the whole conceptualiza­ tion of trade union education as a distinct aspect of industrial studies. The importance of this development becomes more obvious when one perceives that trade union education has actually been expanding at a time of severe economic recession in Britain and consequent contraction in most social services to working class people.

^During the Cultural Revolution in China, the Red Guards raised the slogan "red and expert" out of fear that a party bureaucratic elite would develop, similar to the one which was perceived to have developed in the Soviet Union. See Hinton (1971) The Hundred Day War. Q This pedagogy has had significant influence all over the Third World, particularly in countries concerned to deepen and broaden the process of social revolution, such as Angola and Mozambique. See Freire (1973) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and (L973) Educatioh for Critical Cohscioushess. q Nonetheless, the fact remains that I was able to feel peculiarly "at home" among many of my informants, particularly day release students.

302 SECTION III:

ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS OF THE SYSTEM OF

WORKERS' EDUCATION IN SHEFFIELD CHAPTER NINE

IMPORTANT FORMS IN THE SYSTEM OF

WORKERS' EDUCATION IN SHEFFIELD

The extended case study presented in Section II was intended to serve a number of methodological and theoretical purposes. These include the presentation of the kind of data generated by the field study and the way that the data were related to each other. It also was designed to reveal something of the way that the developing theoretical framework grounded in the field was applied to the study of a particular form of workers' education, and how in turn this study contributed back to the development of the theoretical frame. Essentially the same kinds of procedures, mutatis mutandis, have gone into the development of the analysis of the other forms of British workers' education described in this third section of the dissertation. Space considerations dictated that the kind of extended argument presented in regard to day release would be

inappropriate for each of the eight additional forms to be

described. Rather, the reader is asked to keep in mind that a

shorter format has been selected, one which concentrates on a

few examples of the form at hand and the conclusions with regard

to the form reached in the research, in order that attention

can be directed to the major theoretical (and practical) con-

304 305

elusions about workers' education in Sheffield particularly but more generally as well. The broader focus will also help counterbalance the illusion of community independence which is virtually inevitable in the case study approach.

The central conclusion regards the existence of a system of workers' education in Sheffield which plays a significant role in the reproduction of working class culture. When grasped in its totality, an understanding of this System can provide a significant explanatory perspective on the nature of working class cultural reproduction. It is essentially the same point to say that an adequate total understanding of the reproduction of working class culture and the future and present state of the working class movement cannot be developed if the system of workers' education is ignored and attention paid only to the reproduction of the dominant culture or to political economic processes which themselves are abstracted from any human agency.

At the same time, it is equally important to stress that an isolated account of the functioning of the workers' education system is equally incapable of providing on its own an adequate explanation of the reproduction of working class culture. The kinds of symbolic practice described in Section

II and in the remaining chapters of Section III give some indication of the nature of this process. Moreover, in the formulation of the research problem, in site and mini-study selection, and in development of grounded theory in the field. 306

I was quite conscious of the effects of political economic forces and the dominant culture on the reproduction of the working class culture in which I was taking part. Nevertheless, these political economic forces and the ongoing dynamics of the reproduction of other cultures are not handled systematically within this dissertation. Like Braverman, I would justify my abstraction from such systematic analysis on heuristic grounds, particularly the fact that the processes which I have studied are so seldom recognized as even existing, let alone having any significance. Unlike Braverman, or at least, unlike what I feel are obvious implications of his work, I do not presume to have identified all the important dynamics of the cultural reproductive process, as I feel he has presumed to do with regard to the work process.

Were one, for example, to attempt to provide the theoretical outlines of a model to account for the consciousness of class of any particular individual worker in Sheffield, reference to the kinds of phenomena described in this disserta­ tion would provide only part of the outline. His or her involvement in day release, political party education, or the struggle at the workplace would provide an important part, but only a part, of an explanation for their consciousness. The effects of the mass media, the large majority of the experience in credentialized, compulsory education, and their consumption experience would also have to be taken into account, as would 307

their particular experience with the political economic forces leading to unemployment, their place in the labor market, and the work processes they engage in, for example.

All this is by way of saying that the accounts in this dissertation of forms of workers' education are not to be seen as attempts at empirical models in any simple-minded or Boasian sense of this notion. For each example of a positive contribu­ tion to the reproduction of working class culture contained in the chapters to follow, others could be found of a more negative impact ; indeed, for each example of impact, one could find examples of non-impact. Actually, very few Yorkshire or

Derbyshire workers have been on the day release course. This does not mean that I have not tried to assess the nature of the contribution/inhibition dialectic with regard to each form;

I clearly have, especially with regard to day release. But given the limits on space, and the ultimately abstract character of the description, I have chosen to focus in the following sections on the possibilities for workers' education available within each form, on the one hand, and the forces keeping these possibilities from being maximally utilized for working class cultural reproduction, on the other.

As indicated in Chapter Four, the vehicle for achieving such a focus with regard to each form is the identification of the particular dialectic between allocation of social wealth and the character of working class control which structures it.

Thus, for example, in Chapter Ten on "Workplace-based Workers' 308

Education," it is pointed out that, while the dominant structure controlling the workplace is the capitalist social relations of production, the working class has developed a number of institutions, such as trade unions and shop stewards' committees, to defend itself against the effects of capitalist control of production. These worker organizations have an important effect on the symbolization, or knowledge generation, which takes place among workers at the point of production, and it is through them largely that workers exercise control over work­ place workers' education. At the same time, it is argued that the histories and organizational imperatives of these structures themselves impose limits on the allocation of social wealth to the collectivization of workplace-generated knowledge. The niche of workpl,^ce-based workers' education is to be located within parameters like these.

In this example, as in each of the other forms described, there is obviously a relationship between the two aspects of the dialectic; that is, between social wealth, on the one hand, and working class control, on the other. While in fact a great amount of social wealth is allocated to understanding the productive process, working class control of this process is clearly subordinate to capitalist control. Yet the existence of such an inverse relationship between social wealth and working class control in this instance should not be taken as an example of the existence of such a relationship in each form, even though in general the relationship can be said to hold. 309

For example, in day release, a relatively large amount of wealth is devoted to education, and yet through an alliance with sympathetic tutors, the unions and shop steward organiza­ tions exercise considerable control for the class over the niche. The point is that each form must be considered empirically not rhetorically.

Briefly, in Chapter Eleven, the dialectic is between a significant expansion of social wealth into shop steward's education and good prospects for working class control, pending resolution of a variety of pedagogical problems.

Chapter Twelve on research contains some examples of a critical approach to the scientific codification of knowledge relevant to the working class. Some of the problems which have been encountered by attempts to develop this work on a more solid foundation are described as well. Chapter Thirteen discusses the relationship of public education to the reproduction of working class culture, and a discussion of a number of issues raised in the debate over public education is used to illuminate this complicated relationship. Chapter Fourteen discusses the consequences of the much smaller allocation of social wealth to public adult education as well as some of the limitations on working class control which have to do with the history of multiple institutions providing workers' education in this niche. There is also discussion of a significant cooperative effort in this form. Chapter Fifteen attempts to provide a framework for discussion of full time higher education for 310

working class adults, tracing out the implications of views which variously see the colleges as places to prepare workers

to function within elite circles, or as places to spread

upwardly-generated working knowledge. The educational frame­ work withip which one such college recently closed, and another

recently opened, is also explored. Chapter Sixteen concentrates

on the community experience and the reproduction of working

class culture, attempting to provide an approach which sees the

working class community as a constantly evolving locus of

adaptation to the dominant social order at the same time that

it is a locus of resistance; the chapter identifies some forms

of working class activity which constitute realms of comparative

autonomy, as well as some activities in which attempts are

being made to develop the political dimension of community

experience. Finally, Chapter Seventeen explores independent

political education and the part it has played in workers'

education in Sheffield, as well as the effects of the history

of the political working class movement on contemporary

political education.

Section III is divided into a set of three chapters

on knowledge and education relating to the workplace, three

on institutions which are a part of the state, and two on

community institutions. While limitations of space did not

permit an exhaustive study of each form, it is my contention

that the forms identified are the important niches within

which workers' education takes place in contemporary Sheffield. 311

There are two important implications of this contention; one is that programs attempting to operate within a particular form will find fundamental similarities in the opportunities and difficulties they face; the dialectic between wealth and control creates a structural space which will either limit their work or which will have to be combatted directly. The corollary of this, of course, is that programs attempting to operate in different niches will have different dynamics and that, if these differences are understood and related to the parameters of the niche, stimulation and even cooperation can be the result. A good example is the role of the Sheffield

CP network in the original organization of day release classes in the steel industry. In fact, one could argue that such understanding can provide the possibility of the creation of completely new niches, as happened with day release.

The second major implication of the notion that this list constitutes an exhaustive, empirical list of the major forms of workers' education in Sheffield is that forms not included are not major forms. For example, the large amount of training of craft apprentices which takes place in Colleges of Further Education, or during in-plant training sessions, is not included as a separate form. This is the case for a number of reasons, such as the fact that the theory on which

such programs are based provides no conceptual space for the existence of working class culture or for the dynamics of its reproduction, and the fact that no informant raised the issue. 312 and that there was virtually no data collected in the field which indicated that such training had an important role. This is not to say that this kind of work training couldn* t have an important role; on the contrary, I spent a day with an FE

College tutor who tried quite hard to make his courses for craft apprentices lessons in working class culture as well, and attempts to do so more broadly could certainly be made. The point is that, for the moment, my research gave little reason for believing that they are being made, that apprenticeship and job training are being made important foci of struggle over class cultural reproduction.

It is in this second sense*that the elements of the typology--including, of course, day release--around which the following chapters are organized can be seen as providing an empirical framework for the more general study of workers' education in Britain. This framework could be used as a basis for comparative study: Do these same forms predominate in other British cities? What about in other countries? It could also be used as a guide to help the practicing working class tutor to identify the concrete framework of worker education institutions which have a more or less direct effect upon his or her own work.

This leads back to the essential conclusion of the dissertation, the existence of a system of workers' education and its essential role in the reproduction of working class culture. It is this system--this set of forms taken together-- which is the dominant mediation of any particular form of 313

workers' education. In other words, what one can accomplish in independent political education is a function of the total effects of the other forms taken together. No particular form of workers' education in Sheffield operates outside of the rest of the system to any significant extent. At the same time, of course, it is the existence of this system, and its highly-developed institutional character, which create the great possibilities for effective educational work to be carried out. Taking into account the fact that the system of workers' education is the significant immediate context within which any particular form or program operates, one is driven to the conclusion that a theoretical understanding of the system as a whole would contribute significantly to the ability of the class to gain control of its own reproduction; or conversely, the less well the system as a whole is apprehended, the more likely that significant opportunities will be missed and misunderstanding handicap work.

Before attempting to assess the working of the system as a whole, it is necessary to look at its major parts; thus we turn to a discussion of the eight other forms of workers' education which, along with day release, constitute the major parts of the system of workers' education in contemporary

Sheffield. CHAPTER TEN

WORKPLACE-BASED EDUCATION

In a conversation in the office of the Sheffield

District Communist Party, discussion turned to how workers

develop a class perspective;

It comes early in a pit village, through listening to your gran'-dad talk about 'them and us,' which you know at a young age. The older ones resent it, and they pass it on by word of mouth.

(D.H.) I can see how it develops in a pit village, but what about in the city?

It's learned at work, through the social contact with your mates and through learning the lessons of struggle.

Translated into the theoretical language of this dissertation,

this statement amounts to the claim that the primary aspect of

life experience which prepares the urban worker for positive

involvement in the reproduction of working class culture is his

experience at work, particularly the social relations developed

there, and his involvement in workplace-related struggles. The purpose of this chapter is to explore this thesis by describing

the variety of workplace learning experiences in Sheffield with

the potential for making a positive contribution to working

class cultural reproduction and to identify some of the

limitations on this contribution.

314 315

THREE WORKPLACE LEARNING SITUATIONS

My longest continuous interaction with a group of industrial workers in Sheffield was with the students on a

WEA class in Hazards at Work. These students were mostly engineers and skilled craftsmen in metal-working and glass- making factories who had developed a special interest in health and safety at work. After class one evening, a group of tutors from Science for People was trying to specify a particular contradiction in the approach to health and safety which had emerged in the course, a contradiction between the way the workers approached such issues and the way the tutors did. Students approached each issue from the point of view of "how to get a handle on it," relating each problem to other problems which were considered similar, and discussing the demands which had been raised in those cases. In essence, each issue was broken down into an isolated unit, so that, for example, a ventilating hood could be bargained off against a higher piece rate. In contrast, tutors stressed the need to see each hazard within the context of the whole work process in the plant, a contextual approach which saw re­ engineering of whole processes as the most effective and therefore most desirable way of dealing with hazards. The students themselves provided some justification for this approach in that several of them were highly critical of the way that their shop floor organizations had handled safety 316 issues, and they tended to be renegades in their own organizations.

Yet is also the case that many of the significant positive features of workplace relations, and therefore of the opportunities for development of working class symboling, are related to the uniquely strong tradition of shop stewards' organizations referred to in Chapter Three. The shop stewards' organization in one large steel and engineering plant in

Sheffield with a work force of several thousand is composed of about 100 stewards.^ All departments in the factory

(actually several plants which have been merged), including ancillary workers such as materials' handlers, are on incentive pay. The shop stewards' committee has been intimately involved in negotiating this departmentally-based pay structure, and it has obvious effects upon a wide variety of social relations within the plant as well as having a significant effect upon the labor process.

The steward's organization tends to want to avoid strike action, unless provoked by management; various forms of work banning to reduce output are preferred industrial weapons.

Almost daily there are piecework disputes and bans frequently result. Political strikes are particularly difficult to win membership support for, and they often result in strained shop floor relations, particularly between more "political" stewards and more "mercenary" stewards. In resolving disputes, foremen are invariably by-passed by management, and they 317 frequently have to ask shop stewards what is going on. The shop stewards are elected directly by the shop floor workers whom they represent; the convenor of stewards, who works full-time on union business but is paid a salary by management, feels that this constitutes a direct form of democracy and it justifies having the Labour Party run by the shop stewards' movement. He stresses that the organization grew "like topsy" through rank and file pressure and "guerilla tactics"; it has now formed a combine organization with several similar committees in the larger industrial group to which the firm belongs.

Despite significant differences in the organization in various departments, the plant is strongly allied to one working class party and has turned out large numbers of party workers on occasion, as well as significant support for political strikes. Craft workers tend to be the best organized, most political, and most represented in the ranks of the steward organization.

Occasionally, such well-organized industrial structures break down, and some form of united industrial action results.

During the field study, a major industrial action took place around the closing of a medium-sized (480 workers) engineering firm. The Capital Tool Works. When redundancy (layoff) notices were sent to the employees, the current owners of the plant

(a conglomerate recently f o m e d from the merger of several engineering firms in Sheffield and elsewhere in England) justified the action on the basis of the plant's outmoded 318 equipment and low productivity. The trade union organization argued that the closing was a deliberate attempt to break its organization, basing its claims on the facts that a) through struggle (including a two-week-long work-in the year before), workers in the firm had secured the highest piece rates in the group ; b) there was a pattern of consistently low investment in the plant; and c) work was being systematically transferred to an equally old but unorganized plant in the Manchester area.

Industrial action by the trade union organization to protest management's unilateral violation of the status quo agreement quickly escalated to a strike of workers at all thirteen of the group's plants in Sheffield and an unprecedented blacking (boycott) of all the firm's products. After 10 weeks of demonstrations, petitions, meetings, and arguments in the local press, the company agreed to take back redundancy notices and find other jobs for those who had not accepted redundancy voluntarily. However, the plant was still to be closed. At the time I left the field, the firm had been unable to find a suitable job for the Communist convenor of shop stewards at the Capital Tool Works who had organized the AUEW structure at the plant, led the work-in, and led the AUEW District Committee campaign against the closure. The pride over the victory on the issue of redundancies was therefore somewhat subdued. 319

THE EDUCATIVE POTENTIAL OF THE

WORKPLACE SITUATION

Each of these examples was chosen to convey something of both the potential and the limitations of learning in the workplace and in workplace-related struggle. The health and safety aspect is only one of many things workers leam about the physical techniques and relations of production. Its relevance to the physical reproduction of the worker (i.e., staying alive) is obvious; it's potential for laying the basis of a radical critique of capitalism is equally great. The example demonstrates some of the limits which inhere in the forms of organization and action developed by the class to deal with issues like health and safety.

The shop stewards' organization provides opportunities for symboling with regard to labor-management relations, or the social relations of production. The organization is obviously intimately involved in determining a variety of aspects of the work process and the conditions under which it takes place, at the same time as it provides a structure for workers to have an educative and active impact on the broader social order. Clearly, there are limits to such educative potentials, having to do with the specific history of any given shop stewards ' committee and the kinds of relationships developed by the plant organiza­ tion in its dealings with management.

The Capital Tool strike also provided great potential for learning and other forms of creative symboling ; the move- 320

ment had to be mobilized, tactics developed, and publicity

generated. The fact that enough pressure was generated to

maintain the strike for an exceedingly long time by British

standards, and that the issue was eventually won, is one

manifestation of the educational job that was done, but so is

the failure to keep the plant open and to avoid the isolation

of a major trade union leader.

The three examples illustrate the kinds of learning

potential of the workplace niche. In the social science

literature about the workplace, there appear to be three

fundamentally different evaluative perspectives regarding the

quality of workplace-based knowledge. One is basically a

management orientation, which sees workplace knowledge as a prerogative of management,. either something completely removed

from workers or doled out to them on a "need to know" basis

in management-run training sessions. This perspective has

very little time for the kinds of learning experiences identified

in my examples.

A second perspective is relatively more recent,

traceable to Harry Braverman's monumental Labour and Monopoly

Capital. In this book Braverman attempts to trace the con­

sequences of developments in the social relations of production

which have systematically aimed to separate manual and mental

labor and in the process have robbed workers of both skill and

dignity at work. The ultimate effect of Braverman's book is to

minimize the reproductive potential of workplace knowledge

and learning. 321

The third perspective has developed largely in response to Braverman, and is for me most evident in Kusterer's (1975,

1978) work. This perspective argues that workers develop and implement a great deal of important workplace knowledge and

"know how" which has tremendous potential for the reproduction of working class culture. Kusterer makes this point particularly in regard to so-called "unskilled," largely female labor through a detailed case study of the actual working knowledge developed by machine operatives and bank tellers.

My experience in Sheffield reinforced my inclination toward this third position; workers do l e a m a great deal of relevance to the question of class cultural reproduction at the workplace and in struggle around it. This is in the first instance a consequence of those dynamics of capitalism, particularly the drive toward accumulation, which force the capitalist to extract as much surplus value from the workforce as possible. Workers have developed organizations like unions and shop stewards' committees precisely out of the need for a coordinated, informed program to counter the steps taken by management. Workplace learning is important because it is in the workplace that the fundamental contradictions of capitalism are most manifest.

This fact has led British workers to devote a great deal of their money and time to the development of more sophisticated organizational tools to carry out the struggle at the point of production. Full-time convenors and time off 322

work for trade union training (a subject discussed in the next chapter) are just two of them; others include unions and their structures of full-time officials, the Labour Party, originally set up by union delegates, and various combine structures.

With regard to the question of control, it was obvious from my field study that the average British worker has a great deal more control over some aspects of his work experience, and therefore its educative potential, than his American counterpart. This is particularly true in Sheffield, where much of the technology of production has developed within a strong craft tradition. The importance of the issue of workers' control in the past few years has a real material basis in the shop stewards' organizations, unions, and craft-oriented 2 processes involved in production.

These worker organizations, along with the various joint consultative and other participative experiments developed in Britain in the last few years, should in no way be confused with the revolutionary demand for workers' control. Indeed, the very structures developed by the working class to protect its interest at the point of production can often function to keep the process of workplace symboling and knowledge genera­ tion within "safe" limits, or to block the upward communication of knowledge generated at the point of production. 323

FORMS OF WORKPLACE WORKING CLASS

SYMBOLING AND THEIR LIMITATIONS

These are summarized in the Table on the following page.

Each of these types of learning opportunities could be fruitfully studied in depth from an educational or symboling point of view; the chart only identifies their potential contributions and potential limitations. Nonetheless, the sheer breadth of opportunity for a positive contribution of workplace learning to class cultural reproduction is obvious.

Perhaps the best summation of the limitations is to point out that they apply more to the collectivization of worker knowledge than to its generation; that is, there are multiple opportunities for workers to l eam in these workplace situations ; the problem is insuring that what is learned is generalized throughout the workers' organizations and social relationships so that the knowledge can be applied. It is in this collectivization process that bureaucratization, manipulation, and the stifling of dissenting points of view is most problematic.

The Capital Tool Works Strike as Workers' Education

I would like to illustrate both the potentials and the limitations of the workplace educational niche by retuming to the strike described at the beginning of the chapter and looking at it again from the educational point of view. It is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the educational work done around the strike, because information about it was 324 II

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difficult to come by. Nonetheless, certain things were obvious,

Little was done to build support for the action outside of the 3 shop stewards' combine committee and the ConFed organization.

No significant organizing time was devoted to most elected

shop stewards, the trade union branches, the Trades' Council,

and the political working class movement. The strike was

only mentioned once at a Trades' Council meeting, at the point

of adjournment, when "carte blanche" support was requested.

Debate over tactics was carried on within the ConFed; it was most acrimonious over whether a sympathy strike of all

engineering workers in the city should be for one full day or

only four hours. Militants argued that a four-hour strike

accomplishes little and spreads the economic burden of participation unevenly, on only one shift. A decision to go with the four-hour action meant that some of the most

politically active plants did not participate fully.

The sympathy strike was related to by its participants

as and followed the form of several other essentially

political strikes in the city. (Another four-hour general

strike in Sheffield during the field period was in protest of

the Social Contract). This meant a march through downtown

followed by a rally with speakers from the trade union

organization who followed an orderly, obvious hierarchy of

positions.

There is some reason to question the educational

effects of the strike on those inside the Capital plant. The 326 plant's CP branch gained four new members, but the branch had to be reorganized with the closing of the plant. Something of a dissident caucus which met independently for study seemed to be forming in communication with members of Big Flame, but it was difficult for me to find out more. Though at least some of those who took voluntary redundancy were likely discouraged, the solidarity among members of the group and the strength of the action are evidence 6f political growth.

Major publicity for the action came through the left press; the national papers of several sectarian groups carried regular stories on the action. One public meeting, advertised very little, was held with the Convenor at Capital on the campus of the University. The four-hour strike and rally were totally unpublicized; while the presentations at the rally were informative and effective, there was little attempt to involve those who attended in further study of the issues or other forms of support. Even though almost all the speakers were Communist Party members, they stuck to strictly trade union matters.^

Of course, the decision to avoid raising broader issues was related to tactical decisions, and these in turn were based upon a desire to keep the action well within the bounds of trade union legitimacy. This in essence meant structuring all action around the argument that management had provoked the confrontation by its violation of the status quo agreement, and that management had also provoked the 327

blacking by trying to move "tainted" goods. From a trade union point of view, the tactical decisions were largely unquestionable, although the educational consequences might be unfortunate.

But this is precisely the point that I wanted to illustrate, that strong trade union organizations, capable of defending the class interest in the present may handicap its ability in the future. For all its militance, the Capital

Tool Works action released no great energy against the social contract, no push for the campaign against the cuts, no great support for largely-female hotel workers who were out on a recognition strike in the city at the same time. Indeed, had it not been the case that the assets of the group of which

Capital Tools was a part were so concentrated in the Sheffield area, the issue of redundancies might have been lost as well.

Other marginal engineering works continued to be shut down during the strike, and little was done to save these jobs. In the long run in Sheffield, the shortcomings of the educational aspects of this action may be as important as the shortrun trade union benefits. 328

NOTES

^Much of the data on this plant was gathered by the Sheffield Extramural study of shop stewards in the engineering industry in Sheffield. 2 Arguments for workers' control are put forward cogently in Coates and Topham (1968) Workers' Control and in a variety of publication from The Institute for Workers' Control in Nottingham. There are a number of very good works which deal with the nature of shop floor organization; my favorite is Huw Beyon (1975) Working for Ford. 3 The combine was a committee of representatives from each of the plants in the group ; the ConFed, or Confederation of Ship Building and Engineering Unions, is a shop steward organization-based group of unionists in the Sheffield region.

^For example, the major tactical alternative for ending the social contract which was put forward was to have the shop stewards push forward vigorously on all piece rate claims. In essence, this was a trade union attempt at a strategy to smash the social contract directly, economically, rather than through the political apparatus.

\ CHAPTER ELEVEN

SHOP STEWARD EDUCATION

In this chapter, attention is directed to types of worker education based on the workplace but having a more

formal educational structure and content, oriented specifically

to trade union and off plant premises. These types are the various forms of training and education provided on released

days for elected shop stewards through British trade unions

and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), independent of management

control. During the field period the trade union movement was in the midst of a vast expansion and rationalization of

shop steward's education, an expansion which was based on an

articulate and highly politicized perception of the role of

such shop steward work in the building of the working class movement. Representing this point of view, Barratt Brown

argues that through trade union education, the working class may be succeeding in establishing itself in a dominant

position in regard to the broader social struggle over

education and social equality. In an important paper on the

relationship of adult education to industrial democracy, he

contends that trade union education is now a form of social

education sui generis ;

329 330

...(W)ith the firm establishment of trade union educa­ tion. . in the last decade, really...a form of working class 'social' leamingl has been developed in Britain that is neither the indoctrination of the political sects on the one hand nor on the other the spontaneous learning from experience at work (1977:15).

The purpose of this chapter is to describe what this shop

steward education is like and its role in the reproduction

of working class culture.

THREE EXAMPLES OF SHOP STEWARD EDUCATION

The One-week Summer School

For a number of years, the TGWU (Transport and General

Workers' Union, or T&G) has run a set of one week summer schools

at Cirencester for new shop stewards. Much of the content of

the school is structured around various participative activities,

including exercises in joint-committeeman's-ship or negotiating.

Once in each week, the stewards organize and run their own debate,

based on a topic of their choice. Though most stewards have never been to the school before and for some of them, this is

their first real public speech, the debate invariably follows a

set of clearly understood guidelines and procedures, an

indication that such debating structures are common in certain

aspects of working class culture.

When I attended, the debate was on the Social Contract,

a topic demanded by a militant caucus of stewards identified

with the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP). A young Glaswegian

opened the debate with a bitter denunciation of the policies 331

of the Labour Government and the collaboration of the top

trade union leadership, including the T&G. The audience was

supportive, and the floor was opened for discussion. The

chairman recognized in turn each who wished to speak, and

each was applauded. Comments ranged from complex economic

analysis by highly polished speakers to brief statements of

the particular concerns of special groups. The tone of the

argument was generally critical of the social contract, but

even those who spoke in favor of it were applauded and

listened to carefully.

In his opportunity to sum up, the opening speaker

deliberately provoked the chairman of the debate, angrily

denouncing him for attempting to stop the speaker after his

ten-minute limit had expired. This provoked the larger part

of the audience to walk out, and the walkout became a topic

of discussion throughout the school. It appeared to me that

the militants had consolidated feeling against them by misuse of a form which was created to provide people like

themselves with a platform for a "fair 'earin'."

Day 8--Health and Safety--on a Basic Shop Stewards' Bay Release Course

In the classroom at a Sheffield technical College of

Further Education, a group of Sheffield engineers who had

recently been elected shop stewards gathered for the eigth

day of a basic shop steward's training course. Like the students,

the class tutor spoke with a broad soft South Yorkshire accent. 332 as he explained tô me his criticisms of the TUC syllabus for the course ; particularly the attempt to fit an adequate discussion of health and safety into one day. This led too easily into a distortion, he argued, since too much time was spent on safety constitutions and committees, not enough on an overall approach to safety. There was too much role training and not enough education.

The class began at 10 AH. with a discussion of the students' answers to a "discovery questionnaire on health and safety." Filled out as homework, the questionnaire aimed at eliciting the safety procedures and problems at the plants where the stewards worked. While the tutor used the students' answers to make some general points about health and safety, the stewards used the opportunity to find out what things were like in other plants. One steward found out from his classmates about a recent industrial death in his own plant I

As examples flowed, the stewards began to question their previous notions about what constituted an accident and what proportion of them were really caused by worker carelessness.

One commented on how he felt that stewards tended to use worker carelessness as an excuse to do nothing about a safety problem.

After a coffee break, the students returned for an apparently regular discussion about ongoing local and national industrial disputes. This turned gradually into a discussion 333

of how specific hazardous situations had been handled in the various plants they represented. Through the discussion, the tutor helped sort out the various issues that were being raised and underlined the point that health and safety was really an industrial relations problem, not a result of careless workers. As the TUC syllabus argued, he said, "The most effective way to ensure a healthy and safe workplace is by ensuring that your trade union organization gives health and safety a high priority..." The tutor tried hard to draw his conclusions from the discussion and use them to lead into the next topic of the syllabus. This he felt was the best way to accomplish what he considered to be the primary goal of shop steward training, expanding the small core of particularly active stewards in any workplace. Having seen the particular shop floor problems in a broader context, the new steward can less easily relate to these problems as disconnected with other industrial relations matters, and so he is more likely to become an activist.

Safety Tutor Training Session

In order to expand the number of people capable of training shop stewards who would be taking on the special responsibility of being safety stewards, the TUC decided to draft full time officials. After a weekend of training, such officials were supposed to be able to provide the rudiments of necessary information to the newly elected safety stewards 334

In their unions. At the weekend session, the education was less than salutary. Materials were too brief, the officials expressed a sense of severe limitations regarding their abilities; classes were less explorations of subject matter and more a direct instruction in TUC policy; there wasn't enough time to deal with complex issues.

In particular, the training session manifested the difficulties in adapting "discovery learning" techniques to complex material. These techniques are designed to base learning on student exploration of provided materials in order to find answers to questions. The value of the exercise is limited by the materials in which answers are to be discovered, and on this course, and on other safety courses for shop stewards, the materials were limited to official government publications. Thus, the complex question of setting adequate standards for safety was reduced to merely looking up the government's tolerance limit value.

THE SHOP STEWARD EDUCATION NICHE

At the time of the field research, the Labour Government and the TUC were embarking upon an ambitious program of development of a modulated, multi-level education program for shop stewards. This program was designed to provide adequate education, including specialized education, for an estimated

400,000 shop stewards in British, industry. In order to understand the particular niche occupied by this training, it is necessary to look briefly at the history of shop steward training. 335

As late as the early 1970*s, the shop steward movement was

looked upon with hostility by most. British management and '

governmental agencies, and with great suspicion by most trade

union leaders. Shop floor organizations were either treated

according toethe "mushroom principle" described previously, or

they got occasional training from the individual unions.

By the mid-1970's, however, this attitude was changing

rapidly toward an understanding by management, government,

and unions that the steward organizations were a permanent

part of the industrial scene. Several proposals were made to

rationalize their incorporation through education; the

original 1964 decision of the TUC to intervene and end the

WEA-NCLC rivalry had been taken to enable the TUC to assert

its hegemony in trade union education. The development of the

TUC scheme was profoundly influenced by the estrangement

between the trade union movement and the Labour Party

consequent to LP support for an attempt to impose an American-

type legalistic framework on industrial relations. This

approach, outlined in a 1969 document called "In Place of

Strife," was actually implemented in the 1971 Industrial

Relations Act (IRA) under a Conservative government. A

movement of resistance to the IRA developed in the shop

stewards ' committees, and this movement was actively encouraged

by the fledgling TUC Education Department and Training College.

Strikes, demonstrations, and other industrial action made the

IRA unenforceable, and the TUC discovered it had a powerful

educational weapon. 336

A rapproachement between the unions and the Labour

Party was engineered by powerful trade union leaders in time

for the 1974 general election. The basis of this rapproachement was a Labour Party commitment to "a fundamental shift in the balance of wealth and power in society to working people and

their families," which was to include institutionalization of greater trade union power and workers' control at the workplace. Intelligent use by workers of their new workplace powers was to transform Britain gradually into a more socia­

listic, egalitarian society.

It is because of this emphasis on "intelligent" action

at the workplace that TUC education takes on its special

cast. Trade union education has taken on a central role in the

social program of the majority political party. In 1976,

the British Government allocated X.400,000 to the TUC for

educational purposes. In conjunction with the education still

carried out in unions, trade union education carried out in

technical colleges, and the education financed through the TUC's

affiliates' fees, this is a rather large allocation of social wealth. In the words of one TUC tutor, "It is the first

attempt to make education for the broad mass of working people

a serious matter."

The TUC is developing this program (rapidly approaching

the day release training of 100,000 students a year) on the

basis of claims to working class independence. It has 337 successfully defended trade union education against the attempt of employers and the Government's Council on Industrial

Relations to make shop steward training a joint labor manage­ ment activity arid to carry it out in plant. Rather, they claimed that trade union studies was a legitimate, independent academic subject which should not be judged based on its acceptability to management. Instead, the TUC has formed a working arrangement with a variety of education bodies

(Colleges of Further Education, the WEA, University Extramurals) in which the TUC controls access to students, syllabus materials, and access to the field for new tutors, while relying on the existing institutions for the bulk of the tutoring staff.

As was pointed out in Chapter Eight, whether this situation constitutes adequate academic freedom is a matter of controversy. The head of the TUC education department,

Roy Jackson, stresses three invariant elements of TUC educational policy:

1. trade union control, implying trade union purposes for classes, trade union definition of educational objectives, and trade union selection of students;

2. a coherent educational system, providing a framework for planned union development, the ability to respond to new educational needs, and orderly student progression;

3. Partnership with public bodies, leading to coopera­ tive Trade Union Studies Units (TUSU) as eventually the main locus of tutor training and trade union educational provision, cooperative course develop­ ment, and cooperative tutor training. 338

The system eventually is to have three tiers, with the first being a basic ten-day day release course for all new and untrained shop stewards, the second advanced and specialized courses in issues like health and safety and collective bargain­ ing. The third tier is to provide advanced education at an 2 even higher level. Some inkling of what this may be like is available in classes run by the Extramural Department of the University of London for the print trades. These unions have negotiated advanced participatory agreements with the big Fleet Street newspapers. Classes are designed primarily to serve the educational needs of union members serving in participatory capacities. They begin with students holding a discussion to clarify their educational needs among themselves and then turning to the tutor to provide whatever resources are needed.

Jackson reported the completion of 1200 basic courses in 1975, with an additional 400 in health and safety. The rest of the system is being slowly developed, and it will be a long time before all stewards are receiving as much education as is felt necessary. Other factors intervene, such as the fact that there is still a small TUC budget, which pays all course fees,while the unions negotiate average pay from employers for release time. The small budget has forced a switch of courses to the WEA and away from the "tech" colleges, simply because the WEA charges smaller fees. Another external factor is the Labour Government's decision to postpone implements- 339 tion of provisions of the 1975 Health and Safety at Work, etc.,

Act, which called for mandatory provision of training of safety representatives. While allowing for a more effective expansion of educational capacity in this area than that described in my third example, the decision to postpone was a severe setback to a developing health and safety movement.

As a consequence of the announcement, several big employers abrogated previously-made commitments to release time for safety stewards.

Thus the question of working class control over shop steward education has a variety of dimensions : freedom from management ; financial constraints, the ability to negotiate time off from work. Perhaps the most useful indicator of the future of this bold initiative in workers' education is in the content of the classes being developed by the TUC. This content reveals both the significant influence of the kind of day release education which has been developed at Sheffield

University described in Section II of this dissertation, on the one hand, and the political and time constraints of the

British trade union movement, on the other.

REVISIONS IN THE BASIC COURSE

A unique opportunity for some insight into where trade union education is going was provided by the decision of the

TUC Training College to institute some revisions in the basic shop stewards course during the field period. It was decided m a

340 to pilot these new elements in the South Yorkshire area, since it was felt that this area already had the generally most advanced provision and most experience in the Coùïitry. At a 3 briefing on the new course held at Wortley Hall, the tutor from the TUC Training College opened with a critique of the existing basic course. He stressed the following problems:

1. that the course had grown'like topsy and developed differently in different areas of the country; it was consequently in many cases a poor introduction to the following courses in the modular structure;

2. that there was no articulated statement of goals for the courses from the TUC;

3. a lack of continuity in courses and tutors;

4. a tendency to use a large number of outside speakers, especially trade union full time officers, who often resorted to unstructured, unrelated memoirs ;

5. a general lack of trade union ideology;

6. the TUC materials were inadequate, covering too many subjects;

7. some subjects, like work study, were given too much attention;

8. little use was made of homework ;

9. there was no built in structure for evaluation of the courses ; only the vaguest notion of whether people liked it, and no performance data.

To remedy these problems, the TUC had designed a

completely new course, structured in terms of discovery learn­

ing and activities. The tutor stressed that the new course

demanded skilled tutors, block scheduled for the whole course, without outside speakers. The material was arranged by topics 341 and required a course team for a thoroughly integrated approach.

Content balance was built into the new course by a) insuring that all the areas which are basic to the shop stewards role are covered, and b) that the course is an adequate introduction into the advanced modules. Given the paucity of advanced courses, however, the approach used was a limited introduction to the use of basic information resources. The topics covered included; aspects of the steward's job; knowing your collective bargaining agreement and the trade union organization at your workplace; grievance procedure; discipline at work; job security and rights at work; the legal framework; skills with basic information; using figures to prepare a case; negotiating; health and safety at work; the place of collective bargaining ; how companies work; and uses of information in bargaining.

A general discussion ensued about the new course among the tutors. Several were hesitant about the TUG taking a stronger position in defining the content. One criticized the course for being too narrow, for being training and not the political education that the stewards need. The Training College tutor responded that the basic aim of the course had to be to provide the new stewatd with adequate tools for his or her new job, to correct bad agreements, poor filing systems, and poor skills of information use. At the same time, he emphasized the political commitment of those designing the course and argued that the TUC was definitely not trying to implement an 342

"American style" trade union movement, committed to doing the best job within capitalism.

It is, of course, much too early for any full-scale evaluation of the TUC education scheme. It has a great deal of potential to place the shop stewards' movement on a firm foundation and create conditions for a politicized rank and file leadership. Yet there are significant restraints on the system, some external but some internal as well. In many ways, it is repeating on a larger scale the kinds of experiences which Sheffield Extramurals went through with regard to the

Sheffield model vs. the Oxford model.

I was personally favorably impressed with the educa­ tional skill and commitment of those designing the courses and those carrying them out. The kinds of dynamics described on the health and safety day are clearly continuous with the kind of "education up" orientation of the T&G debate, and with the worker intellectual practice of day release. The subject matter provides a stark contrast to the heavy emphasis on grievance-handling in most US shop stewards' training with which I am familiar. When carried out well, shop steward education within the TUC framework can make a significant contribution to the reproduction of working class culture. NOTES

1 For Barratt Brown, social learning involved a number of different processes, from on the one hand "direct prepara­ tion for the exercise of social rights and responsibilities, with special reference to the advance of the working class," to, on the other, the experience in public education, where the dominant experience "has been learning a form of class consciousness, that is, awareness of the division between •them' and 'us. ' " It is, I think, obvious that he uses the term "social education" in a manner very similar to my use of the term "workers' education" in this dissertation. 2 In several respects this system is modeled on day release; compare this outline with Barratt Brown's discussion of the progression of day release in Chapter Five. o Wortley— Labour's Home— is an educational center on the outskirts of Sheffield which was developed by the local trade union and political movements in an old stately home. It carries on a year-round program of trade union and political education and is an important working class educational resource.

343 CHAPTER TWELVE

RESEARCH--THE CODIFICATION OF WORKERS ' KNOWLEDGE AND

THE PREPARATION OF MATERIALS

Workers* education, or the symboling aspect of the reproduction of working class culture, is a complex of social processes which can be analyzed from a number of points of view. Thus far in this dissertation, contemporary British workers' education in relation to the industrial situation has been described in terms of the niches of workplace, shop steward education, and previously, extended day release education. With regard to many of the types of workers' education which occupy these niches, the argument has been made that shortcomings from the point of view of class cultural reproduction occur more with regard to generalizing workers' knowledge rather than generating it. Particularly in Chapter

Eleven, it was pointed out how working class control of shop steward education was mediated through an alliance of TUC tutors and academics whose research was defining the content of trade union studies. For this reason, the question of the national codification of workers' knowledge, and the theoretical perspectives which inform the preparation of the materials used in shop steward and day release education, is a matter of some concern.

344 345

This codification of worker knowledge at a relatively high level of generalization— research toward a theory of workers' knowledge, it might be called--actually involves a number of processes : the development of theoretical constructs or symbols; the development of information relevant to these constructs; the testing of the usefulness to the class of the constructs and the information they point one to; and the precise formulation of what has been learned. My research in

Sheffield and my involvement in workers' education networks of more national scope led me to the conclusion that, from the point of view of working class cultural reproduction, some particularly positive developments with regard to a working class orientation in research are taking place.

Many of these developments begin with a thorough critique of the dominant school of academic research with regard to the workplace, the school of Industrial Relations.

In an important article on "Trends and Developments in

Industrial Relations Theory " (1976), Fatchett and Whittingham trace critically the development of IR theory from its beginnings as a narrow, empiricist, non-critical study of trade unions and collective bargaining, a study devoid of any significant historical or social contextualization.^ They identify the

American Dunlop's "systems approach" as a relative breakthrough, in that it provides the first theoretical framework for studies of the industrial situation by stressing the common ideology of the various participants in the system. They are, however. 346 highly critical of the Parsonian functionalism which underlies

Dunlop's work, pointing out how it has no systematic mechanism which accounts for the tension and struggle obviously evident at the point of production. In looking for a theory of industrial relations which explains this conflict, particularly the massive kind of conflict which took palce over the Industrial

Relations Act and which proceeded the 1974 general election,

Fatchett and Whittingham recommend Barratt Brown's (1972) perspective. This stresses the oppositional character of the political economy of labour and perceives industrial relations as a sub-system of the political economy, making social class an important variable in IR.

The question which this chapter addresses is, what are the contexts within which this kind of critical, conflict- identifying model of industrial research is developing?

Despite the fact that a large number of unions have research

departments, it is not taking place here. Such departments are generally in no position to raise significant theoretical

questions and develop research programs to answer them. For

example, the Director of Research for the National Union of

Mineworkers, who heads a one-man department, listed as his

duties about 11 different jobs, only one or two of which had much to do with research. Even those at a progressive union

like NUPE, with a larger research staff, devote most of their

time to what is most appropriately seen as preparation of

agitational documents. These include annual economic reviews. 347 which, essentially combine research into the economic consequences of current governmental policy with the framework of union policy developed at delegate assemblies and the political strategy being pursued by the union leadership. Economic reviews are very helpful in explaining union policy, but they seldom raise issues in an educational manner.

Recognition of the limitations of union research i departments has led to the establishment of a network of independent research units with a strong working class orienta­ tion. Perhaps the most well-known of these is the Trade Union

Research Unit (TURU) at Ruskin College, Oxford. In 1971, the unit was started as, "...a small, independent research unit geared specifically to meet the research needs of trade unions in collective bargaining situations..." (SSRC 1974:1). The unit is totally dependent upon trade union affiliations and contracts, for whom it does specifically commissioned work, 2 such as in preparation for a wage claim. The TURU also does general work, such as the series on Notes for Bargainers. It sees its objectives as;

Firstly, to identify and meet the research needs of various trade unions, essentially providing unions with the opportunity of initiating, controlling, and receiving results of research into fields of importance to them. Secondly, to act as a demonstration effect. To show unions the importance of and need for the development of their own internal research resources. Thirdly, to provide educational material suitable for trade union courses, weekend schools, journals, pamphlets, and so on.(1974:3). 348

While the TURU is confident of progress in terms of the first and third of its goals, it is less pleased with progress on

the second: "...(I)t seems to us that many of the union whom we have worked with could expand their own internal research resources and utilize them more effectively... in the field of medium and long term planning of trade union strategy "

(1974:3). Through its permanence, the TURU is the center of a

"rapidly extending network of contacts, discussions, working relationships, and exchange of material " (1974:3); it also provides a research home for special projects, such as Levie's

important research on the uses of information gathered through collective bargaining agreements (1977).;

One of the most important developments in worker knowledge codification in the past few years in Britain has been the development of several local analogues to the TURU, particularly in Southampton, Coventry, Bristol, and Newcastle.

Whereas the TURU has most of its contacts with national union

officials, these local Trade Union Studies Units (TUSUs) are

generally based on an affiliation structure from local trade union branches and shop stewards committees and are therefore

less subject to the limitations on national trade union action.

They tend to combine research work with educational, agitational,

and organizational work. One good example of this process is

a report on British Shipbuilding--A Trade Union Initiative put

together by the Northeast Trade Union Studies Information

Unit (NETUSIU) in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Initially commissioned 349 by the Tyne Shipbuilding and General Branch of the Association of Professional, Executive, Clerical, and Computer Staff (APEX), the completed document (1976) was eventually adopted by the union as national policy at a time when the industry was being nationalized. The report was assembled through having members of the NETUSIU staff assist the APEX branch in stating their own objectives, researching them, and putting them in coherent form. A similar report was prepared by the Coventry Workshop, another TUSU, for Chrysler employees at a time when the govern­ ment was preparing to provide a massive loan to the company to avoid having it go bankrupt.

Several of the TUSUs put out company fact sheets, to provide background to local industrial developments. In this sense, the TUSUs combine on a local level many of the functions of the TURU on the one hand and the older Labour

Research Department (LRD) on the other.

Founded by Fabian Socialists 65 years ago, the LRD has been an important focus of activity for labor movement militants while publishing monthly newsletters and all the while keeping up a steady stream of pamphlets based on original, largely economic research. The pamphlets are designed to give workers

"the facts to fight with" in regard to national issues. The

LRD also does occasional commissioned background research.

The WEA national office has also recently developed a number

of research and information services; they include a quarterly

bibliographic Guide to Recently Published Material in Industrial 350

Relations. and à pamphlet series Studies for Trade Ohionlsts. many of whose titles are written by active trade unionists and workers' educators.

In Sheffield at the same time of the field study, no formal TUSU had really gotten off the ground. Each of the existing TUSUs have faced difficult problems of gaining local legitimacy, avoiding or overcoming national trade union hostility, and finding a sound funding base. Attempts to solve these difficult issues in Sheffield had not succeeded, although recent communications from the field suggest that a group of students who had previously attended TUC shop stewards' courses may be on the verge of organizing one, through the assis­ tance of the Workers' Education Group.

At the time of the field study, two groups were putting real effort into organizing centers of working class-oriented research. One was the Department of Extramural Studies at

Sheffield University, with and by individuals involved in the day release program. Of primary interest was a project on shop steward tenure in the engineering industry; data^from which were used in the description of shop steward organization in Chapter Ten. Through a combination of extended interviews in selected plants, and a mail survey of all stewards sent out under the aegis of the AUEW, an attempt was made to discover the sources of variation in the length of time stewards choose to serve. Though attempts were made to interview management as well, the project did not limit Itself 351 to contexts where a joint research interest was perceived.

In this way the research is freed from the tacit assumption of the continuity of capitalist social relations of production and was in a position to develop an intimate picture of how the shop steward system really functions. The ability to carry out the project with full union cooperation was based on a long history of joint work between the department and

trade unions in the area.

Other research centered at Extramurals during the research period included an evaluation of the new TUC postal

courses described below in Chapter Fourteen, individual research carrtedsout-by tutorsaSadéscribed in Chapter Eight, aKdtreaearch for more agitational material, like a pamphlet written on "An Alternative to Cuts in Public Expenditure"

(Halstead, Curran, and Wanless 1976). This was prepared by

a day release tutor and two full time officials of NUPE.

A 1975 attempt to launch a TUSU based at Extramurals had not been followed up at the time of the field work.

Another organization actively trying to promote a TUSU-type

organization was the Sheffield Science for People. Questions

of research were particularly important to this group because

of their involvement in assisting workers' organizations

with industrial health and safety matters and teaching on

TUC and WEA classes dealing with hazards at work. One member

of the group described the approach to the kind of knowledge

which was being codified: 352

There are two kinds of knowledge involved in the subject matter of the classes; and... thèse differ as a result of their source ; firstly, there is knowledge from science, and secondly, knowledge derived from the student's experience at work. I shall illustrate this...by considering the hazards of dust at the workplace. Much knowledge has been produced in laboratories and hospitals about the effects of dusts on the body--for example, details of the sizes of dust particles which are dangerous, the kinds of chemical composition which are dangerous, and the atmospheric conditions which will produce injury. At the same time, workers have gained practical knowledge and experience over the years of the effectiveness of dust-extraction equipment and protective equipment; and of ways of organizing to enforce safe conditions by using their collective strength; in addition they have learned about the socio-medical effects of dust diseases from a different angle than that of medical experts, for it is they who get the diseases (Schmoller 1977:2).

Much of the consultative and teaching work of the group tried to articulate these two kinds of knowledge. This was a difficult task, for there were massive holes in both scientific and worker knowledge. In attempting to find out about the hazards of synthetic hydraulic fluid used in the mining industry, for example (see Chapter Eight), I discovered that almost all the research carried out on these fluids dealt with their mechanical properties, and very little with health hazards. On the other hand, my attempts and those of rank and file miners to gain access to the information in the hands of the national NUM met with little success either.

Because of problems like these, SfP was interested in establishing a more solid organizational structure for its work. These attempts never got very far, however, because of 353 splits within the group over \diether to go after foundation funding and/or which section of the trade union movement, if any, to approach for support.

Both in Sheffield and nationally, the whole question of workers* research and preparation of materials for workers' education has been raised forcefully by the founding of the

Society of Industrial Tutors (SIT). With Michael Barratt

Brown as its chairman and several Sheffield tutors as active members, the SIT has grown in a short time to a position of considerable influence in trade union education and industrial studies. It is a national association which includes a majority of workers' educators and a minority of people in management education. The SIT contains within it a number of contradictory tendencies, especially the one between those who wish to make the society an effective body for pursuing the interest of an occupation in the midst of becoming a profession and those who see the society's primary responsibility as serving the day to day educational needs of the working

class. The society has excellent relations with the TUC and

the Labour Government; its representatives sit on several

advisory bodies and provide expert testimony to Royal

Commissions and Inquiries. At the same time, the society has

attracted many young tutors and activists from working class backgrounds vdio want to make it a vehicle for consolidating

"really useful knowledge." 354

The decision of the SIT executive to embark upon a full-scale study of Paid Educational Leave (PEL, or basically the institution of day release for educational purposes) focused many of these conflicts. The research involves a survey of existing PEL for trade unionists, craft apprentices, and managers, and a questionnaire survey of past PEL students to assess the impact. The research is seen by its government sponsors as an essential preliminary to the vast expansion bf PEL which is inevitable following recent legislation guaranteeing time off work for trade union education. Some saw the research as evidence of the incorporation of the SIT within the State structure, as a kind of analogue to the

Social Contract. These suspicions were heightened by a decision by the SIT to seek government funding for its internal operations. While I believe that this research is potentially of value to the working class movement, I also felt that not enough was done to insure its usefulness as a mechanism for generalizing worker-generated knowledge. I'm also not convinced that these shortcomings are a consequence of a corporatist bias or of inadequate familiarity with research design. Whatever its faults, the SIT has strongly encouraged a research orientation, as a part of "being a 'thinking person ' whose knowledge is equally at the service of the people with \ ^ 6 m he acts" (Fletcher 1975:8). It has taken the lead in instituting and encouraging evaluative research of PLEASE NOTE:

Page 355 lacking in number only. No text missing.

UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS INTERNATIONAL 356 several of the new initiatives in working class education described in this dissertation.

For a long time, certain parts of the British- academic community have been receptive to research on topics of interest to and serving the needs of the working class . This has been particularly true of areas like social and economic history, where excellent research work made possible, for example, the kinds of historical sketches included in this dissertation.

It is also true in sociology, where a perusal of the major journals reveals much more research in the reproductionist mode than in the United States. The present Professor of Sociology at Sheffield, John Westefgaard, : ia an explicit

Marxist who describes his recent book as an attempt "to present an interpretation of the class structure of Britain... which is both Marxist and anchored in empirical factV

(Westergaard & Res1er 1976 :ix). Of course, Raymond Williams has recently pointed out (1977) how the term Marxist is being applied to an increasingly broad range of material and perspectives. Moreover, as Perry Anderson has pointed out

(1976), the fundamental problem with Western Marxism after the First World War is that it has developed more or less in isolation from the working class movement.

British academics who are not normally involved in the kinds of trade union education described in Chapters Five and Eleven are nonetheless making a distinct contribution to 357 overcoming this isolation. This included much of the work at the Industrial Relations Research Unit (IRRU) at the University q of Warwick , despite its preference for research in situations of perceived joint interest. This work is providing both a rich empirical base for understanding the functioning of

British industry and a broad-ranging critique of existing conceptions of Industrial Relations.

Inspired by the French sociologie du travail, a number of British sociologists have set out to examine the empirical base of the thesis of embourgeoisement in both its Social

Democratic and New Left Review guises. The work of people like Goldthorpe, Lockwood, and Westergaard constitutes a rejection of most of the attempted empirical generalizations of this approach and has led to a renewed appreciation of the point of production as a locus of social stress. One of the most interesting centers of theoretical progress with regard to many of the issues raised in this dissertation is the Centre for Contemporary at the University of Birmingham, which has done much to encourage the study of working class culture. Like many of the academic initiatives, however, the Centre suffers from a lack of regular contact with working class organizations.

In contrast to the trade union, workers' education, and academic research discussed thus far, the British political movement has done little to cultivate a research orientation.

The local trades'council in Sheffield, for example, has done 358 very little to initiate necessary research on the future of the Sheffield political economy, despite evidence of massive redundancies in the heavy industrial sectors and an obvious decision to try to expand the city as a commercial and administrative center. For their part, most of the national political organizations seem to prefer ideological symbol manipulation as a method for solving political problems rather than a more empiricist, going-to-the-workers approach. In some ways, a notable exception to this is the CP, which has done much to cultivate an attitude of scholarship and research, and responsiveness to workers, among its adherents. Critics claim that this has very little impact on party policy formula­ tion, but I felt that Party line expressed the conscious politics of its skilled worker, shop steward base. For most of the groups and most of the time, concepts of scientific

socialism like "the balance of class forces" are related to as rhetorical devices rather than as concepts for orienting really serious investigation.

In sum, the niche occupied by workers' research is

small but growing, with roots in a number of different local and national, trade union, labor education, and academic

turfs. A particularly outstanding example of what some of the newer institutions can accomplish is the 15 volume set of

Trade Union Industrial Studies books developed by Hutchinson

and the SIT (1975). These books provide in many ways a neat

summary of a great deal of workers' knowledge, written by 359 workers and active industrial tutors to be used in trade union education. Like the SIT, they manifest a broad political range, but they can provide the kind of educational material necessary to a developing, increasingly sophisticated movement, NOTES

^And in this regard suffering from many of the problems of early Industrial Anthropology, such as Mayo (1933). 2 Perhaps its most famous work in this regard was assisting the NUM with testimony before a 1972 Government Official Inquiry which took place in the midst of full scale industrial action. See NUM, Hughes, and Moore (1972). q See in particular the empirical research of Brannen, et al. (1976), Boraston et al. (1975) and the theoretical work of Hyman (1975) and Hyman and Brough (1975).

360 CHAPTER THIRTEEN

PUBLIC EDUCATION

Since 1944, compulsory secondary public education has had a significant effect on the symboling of young working class people. The establishment of this system, and the elimination through comprehensivization of the different forms of secondary education for the middle class and the working class described in Chapter Three, have been major goals of the British working class movement. There are those in the movement, such as Peter Horton, Sheffield Labour

Councillor and Chairman of the Sheffield Education Committee, who view the major task of the future as the protection and consolidation of the existing educational system. In contrast, radical critics of the system, such as those who identified with a group called Sheffield Radical Education, echo Althusser and Bourdieu in claiming that the system fundamentally functions to reproduce bourgeois culture and that it must be transformed radically if it is to serve the working class effectively.

My analysis of public education in Sheffield falls between these two extreme positions, in that it sees public

education as an important area of struggle for the working

class, an area where some battles have been won, many lost,

361 362

and many remain to be fought. The higher levels of literacy,

for example, which have been an outcome of universal public education, have laid the basis for a much more unified and politically sophisticated working class movement. At the

same time, a large body of critical research has depicted the negative effects of public education on the self-confidence

of many working class youths ; these negative effects are the basic justification for day release, for example. The sheer

size of the public education system in Britain, which now

represents about 1 % of the entire national product, means that

it is in many ways the dog that wags the tail of working class

education.^ For all these reasons, it is important to grasp

the essential dynamics of public education and examine the

practice of those who would claim to represent the working

class interest in the system.

ASTON COMPREHENSIVE^

This school is in the middle of a pit village recently

incorporated into the extreme Eastern edge of Sheffield. The

student body is largely drawn from working class families,

and there is a wide range of student dress, ranging from the

school uniform of varying greens to the platformed-heeled-shoes,

bell-bottomed trousers, wide-necked shirt and jumper (sweater)

typical of many British working class boys. A young history

teacher described how the school attempts to relate to working

class culture largely through the history curriculum and 363 various administrative attempts to deal with social stratifica­

tion. All classes are grouped consciously according to "mixed

ability," so there is no streaming (tracking) into different

classes. Students are, however, given different reading material. In the first year of secondary school, stress is

placed on the industrial history of Sheffield under the theme

"living together and communicating together." This particular

teacher tries to bring in as much social history as possible, with discussion of topics like union, the Chartists, trading

and industry, factory conditions, poverty, and economic

history. Another structural attempt to deal with the working

class student body is to push "CES mode 3" at examination

time. In contrast to the "A" and "0" level exams which are

national, the mode 3 allows the individual school to set up

their own exam; this, they argue, provides a better assessment

of what the student who is not going on in school has actually

learned. While the curriculum is firmly controlled by the

teachers of the school through their departments, various

other aspects of school life can be affected by the community

through the school governors, a body of teachers, administrators

and community members appointed by the local political parties.

Sheffield has gone further than most cities in devolving

educational power to the school governors.

CROOKSMOOR CENTRE

This was an experimental school or "special unit" set

up primarily for secondary students who were chronic truants. 364

A staff which included educational psychologists based school program on the failure of the traditional curriculum to serve the needs of these students, many of whom were members of minority groups. The school day was structured among a number of cooperative group projects, some with a community service focus, such as improving neighborhood recreational facilities. Individual tutoring and small classes in academic subjects were organized but participation was voluntary. An attempt was made to establish a close relationship between staff and students. For a variety of reasons, many related to the Centre's failure to pursue academic content more rigorously, the Centre was deemed a failure and shut down by the Education Committee. Other special units, with more focus on discipline and individual problems, continued in operation.

THE BOYS AND THE " EAR ’GLES"

Willis (1975) reports on the culture of resistance which develops among working class lads in comprehensive schools and its relationship to the working class culture outside the school. Those classified as "failures" by the school had their own terms for those who tried to succeed: ear 'oles. These were

...'creeps,' 'arse creepers,' 'teacher's pets,' and generally despicable for their conformism to school norms, for their lack of assertiveness, for their inability to show any autonomy, and most of all for their inability to create 'fun' for themselves, to 'have a laff'" (p. 19). 365

The "failures" called themselves "boys," and for Willis, "The most crucial feature of...their culture was entrenched and personalized opposition to the school and its agents " (p. 20).

Membership in this "anti-school" culture was much more important to the non-academic working class lad than any formal achieve­ ment and for this reason it is the "most basic organizing structure of school life " (p. 21). As one boy put it, it is a way "you try to get your own back." After being told by a career officer that his kids would be worse than himself, one boy said

They wouldn't. They'll be outspoken. They wouldn't be submissive fucking twits. They'll be outspoken, upstanding sort of people...If any of my kids are like these (boys) here, I'll be pleased (p. 24).

Willis argues that the vandalism, smoking, drinking, stealing, close relationships with their mates, fighting, and general adoption of behaviors which are perceived as adult are part of an adjustment of the realities of the jobs they will eventually have after leaving school. In summarizing the culture itself, he asks:

What is the nature of this lively, creative culture for which we are claiming some autonomy - an autonomy which is usually denied or ascribed only pathological importance? Most essentially this counter-culture was organized around the colonisation of symbolic spaces within the school, spaces left unpatrolled by the school or polyvalent in themselves... As the most visible, personalized and instantly under­ stood element of the opposition...clothes had great importance to the 'boys.' The first sign of a lad 'coming out' was a fairly rapid change in the appearance of his clothes and hair. The particular form of this alternative dress is determined by 366

outside influences, and in particular by fashions current in the wider symbolic system of . At the moment, and for the schools we worked in, the 'boys' look would include longish, well- groomed hair, platform-type shoes, wide collared shirt turned over waist coat or denim jerkin plus still obligatory flaired trousers. Whatever the particular form of dress it was most certainly not school uniform...(p.30).

PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE REPRODUCTION O f w o r k in g CLASS ù ü l ïuRe

Each of these examples illustrates the kind of relation­ ship which public education can have to the reproduction of working class culture. The social history content at Aston

Comprehensive is a real if somewhat limited attempt to serve class cultural reproduction. The limitations derive from the tendency to make all relevant knowledge in the school academic and to stress hierarchy in all learning styles, and the necessity of relating the school experience to the credentializing, certifying function which is the dominant role of the school in the political economy. Mixed ability grouping and CSE mode 3 exams represent attempts (although only partial) to overcome some of the most egregious consequences on the working class of a middle class orientation in education.

The fate of the Crooksmoor Centre is an illustration of the limits of reform in Sheffield public education. Here an experiment which aimed at building student self-respect was cut short ostensibly as a consequence of a lack of academic orientation, although there was a decision to build a large, rigidly disciplined new structure for truants at the time 367

Crooksmoor was shut down. Apparently, service to community

and self-education were not academically defensible, whereas

rigid structure and discipline are.

Willis' work represents a radically different view

of the role of schools in the reproduction of working class

culture, in some ways similar to the kinds of "lessons of

struggle" which were identified in Chapter Ten as an important

part of workplace workers' knowledge. One can perceive a

real link between the kinds of experiences described here and

the symbolic and economic practice of implacable opposition which is so much a part of working class culture. This anti­

school culture represents real problems for both the reformer who, like those who dominate Sheffield education would open

up the public educational system to the working class and

for the radical who would shut it down to build a new one.

Reforms are doomed to failure in the face of this culture, whereas in its negativism, the anti-culture provides little

immediately mobilizable basis for a new institution capable

of stimulating better working class symbolizing.

Indeed, in dealing with public education from the

point of view of working class cultural reproduction, one

faces several quite difficult dilemmas, dilemmas which, while

clearly manifestations of the broader contradiction between

conflicting systems of class cultural reproduction, are by no

means easy to solve. Moreover, because education is the one

aspect of public life in an advanced capitalist society which. 368 according to the dominant ideology, should be the most amenable to collective social control, it is a favorite target of policy intervention. Thus it was no great surprise that, during the field period, the Prime Minister of the Labour Government attempted to institute a "great national debate" over the present state and future of public education ; he did this as a means of resolving fundamental economic problems, such as the need for more skilled workers. The debate was initiated by his raising a number of perspectives critical of the present state of British public education. Both the consolidating

"reformers" like Horton and the "radicals" like Radical

Education— respectively defensive of the present system and fundamentally critical of it, although for reasons very different from those of the Prime Minister--attempted to intervene in the debate. Given the importance of the critique of public education to the more autochthonous forms of workers' education described above, and the great social wealth devoted to the public education system, some attempt to indicate major perspectives on the consequences of various approaches to asserting working class control over public education is desireable. The issues raised in the "great debate" provide a convenient framework for such an attempt.

ISSUES IN THE 'GREAT DEBATE' OVER PUBLIC EDUCATION

Although very closely intertwined, the various issues can be usefully dealt with under headings of comprehensiviza- tion standards, education and industry and pedagogy. 369

COMPREHENSIVIZATION, or the process of setting up unitary schools with a variety of curriculum offerings to serve the whole community, is a process which is far from over in Britain. The decision to "go comprehensive" involved social considerations as well as pedagogical ones, and many of the locally-controlled school committees have resisted it.

Some, such as Tameside near Manchester, have taken their battle to court and humiliated the government. Others, while complying with the letter of laws requiring comprehensivization, are in reality engaging in varying degrees of tokenism.

Conservatives accepted comprehensivization on the basis of the argument that the system of examinations at 11 and the two- tiered system tended to waste too many good working class minds, rather than on the basis of social equity and anti-elitism which was the basis of Labour support. Therefore, Conservative commitment to comprehensivization is based more in terms of outcome than in terms of policy commitment ; it is for this reason that the question of comprehensivization has been intimately linked to the question of standards, with Conservative critics claiming that standards have fallen as a consequence of a breakdown in academic discipline in the comprehensives.

In the working class movement, both reformers and radicals are united in defending comprehensivization, but this of course means working through the state. 370

STANDARDS are an issue endemic to any attempt to institutionalize education. Recent Conservative critics of public education have made a variety of arguments with regard to this question. One of them was the claim that standards are lowered through the mixing of working class and middle class kids, because of the alleged greater ineducability of a greater proportion of working class children. Such allega­ tions were based fundamentally on the "research" of Sir Cyril

Burt, who argues in Black Papers #2:

Among children from the non-manual classes the pro­ portion endowed with the capacity for a university degree is nearly five times that among children from the manual c l a s s e s . 3

Such arguments follow more or less directly from encultura- tionist perspectives. This is because, since the same cultural system is shared by middle class and working class, the explanation for perceived differences must be external to the cultural system; i.e., in the genes of working class children.

Alternatively, the explanation is in terms of the contentless notion of cultural deprivation, or in terms of some bizzare form of Lamarkian or Lyshenkoian genetics, where the environ­ mental factor of parent's occupation is transformed into genetically-based intellectual potential.

Another conservative approach to standards is the claim that statistics indicate a lower proportion of passes on "A" and "0" level examinations since comprehensivization. The reformers in the working class movement accept the importance of such statistics, but they argue that the fall in proportion 371 follows from an Increase in the number of children, particularly working class children, who choose to stand for the exams. They point to an overall increase in the total number of exams passed as a sign of the success of comprehensivization. In contrast, the radicals argue that the exam system as a whole is fundamentally bankrupt and must be demolished; they raise the question of more appropriate standards. So does the

Prime Minister, who while rejecting the Black Paper arguments for a fall in standards, goes on to say.

But I am concerned in my journeys to find complaints from industry that new recruits from the schools some­ times do not have the basic tools to do the job that is required (quoted in Goldberg and Griffiths 1977 (?): 6) .

EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY is the relationship through which most of the issues in the great debate have found their greatest immediacy. A director of a major British multi-national, which has been among the most ruthless in cutting its workforce over the past few years, argues that the fundamental purposes of education are:

...the development of a sensible attitude towards productive work and the effective teaching of the basic mathematical and literary skills on which can be based further training to make the most of job possibilities and potential talent (Teaching London Kids (1977 (?):19).

This director feels that education is failing in these purposes, and this is in part due to teachers who "perpetuate attitudes which are unhelpful, to say the least, to industry in general and more particularly to free enterprise industry." The radicals of Teaching Lohdoh Kids argue that the battle over 372 standards is really over the question of whether the fundamental purpose of education is to instill attitudes of industrial discipline which will undercut the militancy of the British workforce at the point of production.

PEDAGOGY is an issue precisely because of the points raised by the corporate director; a relaxed attitude toward discipline is a consequence of the "progressive" pedagogy which has come to influence much public education in Britain.

Interestingly, this critique of progressive education is shared in fundamental ways by reformers in the working class movement, particularly those associated with The Communist Party, one of whom is a past president of the National Union of Teachers

(NUT). The Communists argue that a better approach is that of the Workers' states (including the Soviet Union) where educational motivation is based on rigid discipline and collective responsibility (Fraser 1976). One of the radicals attacks this CP position as an overestimation of the possibilities of working class control over public education and an under­ estimation of the effect of capitalist relations of production within public education, both in the workers' and in the capitalist states (Morris 1976). Other radicals try to distinguish between progressivism within education as a political movement, of which they are critical, and progressive pedagogy, which in general they support (Holly 1976).

It is thus on the pedagogical issues that the splits between the reformers and the radicals are most evident, and 373 the splits have to do directly with the question of which pedagogy in public education makes the greatest contribution to the reproduction of working class culture. The splits are at the center of the largest single educational cause celebre during the field period, that of the William Tyndale Junior

School in London. At this school, a group of radicals committed themselves to a form of progressive pedagogy which emphasized the allocation of greatest educational resources to the lowest academic achievers. Their attempts to implement this pedagogy were resisted by a coalition of reformer working class educators and the parents of academically-oriented working class children, and the radical headmaster and several teachers were dismissed.

One activist close to the radical teachers at Tyndale was critical of their attempts to communicate their intentions and establish better working relationships with the parents of the children and the community from which they come. McGovern and Hewlett are among those radicals who recognize the need for closer connections to the working class community if a valid working class orientation is to be the outcome of the radicals' attempts to transform public education (1976:17).

In sum, the examination of comprehensivization, standards, education and industry, and pedagogy within the context of the great debate over public education has illustrated the dilemmes facing the working class movement in this sector. With the public education system under attack, the need for a unified response by both: reformérs and radicals 374 is evident. Such a unified response must somehow involve recognition of the radical critique of the present public education system and the real service which in spite of its shortcomings has been rendered to the class by public education.

In Sheffield, where the organic connections between the working class community and the reformers who administer the public education apparatus are strong, such a rapproachement is quite possible.

This examination of issues in the great debate has also identified pedagogy as the area of greatest controversy between the reformers and the radicals. There are a number of important parallels between the progressive pedagogy under attack by reformers and the kinds of pedagogy which, for example, are being implemented in programs like day release.

The main difference is the institutional context within which the pedagogies are being implemented, and it was argued above that the dispute over the effects of progressive pedagogy is fundamentally a dispute over the role of public education in class cultural reproduction. It would therefore appear that a theoretical practice capable of specifying more concretely the dialectics of the relationship of public education to working class culture would be a helpful contribution to the reproduction of that culture. NOTES

1 Sheffield was one of the first large British cities to "go comprehensive." 2 In this and in several other respects, there are parallels between British comprehensivization and bussing in the United States. 3 A major academic scandal has recently developed around Burt's work. Several investigators have found rather convincing evidence that most of his research results were falsified or simply made up. Not only did he invent numbers to fill his cells, he even invented co-authors (Sunday Times, October 24, 1976)

375 CHAPTER FOURTEEN

PUBLIC ADULT EDUCATION

In the last chapter, many of the more obvious problems in the development of working class control over public educa­ tion were traced to the role of the compulsory system in certification and, by extension, the determination of individual life chances and control of the labor market. This chapter turns to consideration of forms of state-provided education which are not compulsory and have little to do directly with the determination of occupation or income. Particularly in the area of the development of such work, one can find interesting indications of the kinds of activities that the state can be pushed into funding despite the positive part they play in the reproduction of working class culture.

THREE EXAMPLES OF PUBLIC ADULT EDUCATION:

The Barnsley WEA Factory Tour

A tour of a local glass-making factory was arranged for the membership and friends of the Barnsley branch of the

WEA. The tour was arranged by the Chairman of the branch, who was also the chief craftsman in the pattern-making department in the plant, having risen to this position from the most unskilled job in the plant during more than forty years working there. During the tour, several references were made

376 377 to the quality of the glass produced, but there was little discussion of the obvious health hazards of handling molten glass with rather dated equipment. In a discussion regarding unions after the tour, the Branch Chairman was highly critical of the unions in the plant, arguing that "they'd walk out over a bag of crisps" in the plant lunchroom. I was later told by a WEA tutor/jrganizer that, as Chairman of the Sheffield

District WEA, this Branch Chairman had argued vigorously against establishment of industrial branches of the WEA in the Sheffield

District.

Rotherham Day School on the Future of Socialism

In Rotherman, a steel and coalmining town adjacent to

Sheffield, the WEA tutor/organizer had negotiated joint sponsorship of a day school on the future of socialism in

Britain with the local Labour Party and the Communist Party.

The school was addressed by Jack Woddis, international officer of the CPGB, and Ernie Roberts, workers' control advocate, a national officer of the AUEW, and a Labour Party activist. The audience which attended the school contained many local political activists from the South Yorkshire area, including some from the Trotskyist Militant faction in the Labour Party and

CPers identified with one of the more Stalinist local branches.

The presentations of the two speakers were remarkably similar, both stressing a gradual expansion of left working class control over political, economic, and governmental structures 1 by means of elections 378

Social and Political Education at a Sheffield Adult Education Centre

A growing number of working class residents of Sheffield meet weekly for volunteer classes in social and political education. One of these, which extended over several months, was built around radio programs on the topic "What rights have you got?" broadcast by the Education Department of the BBC.

These programs dealt with rights at home, such as social welfare.

National Insurance, and council housing; rights in the community, such as education, hire purchase (installment buying), and local planning; and rights at work, such as health and safety, equal pay, and job security. Such classes are held during the day and in the evening, in local storefronts, community centres, and the Local Education Authority's (LEA) Adult

Education Centres, which are usually attached to new compre­ hensive schools. Other classes and activities include classes on Hazards at Work (with Science for People and the WEA),

Community Studies (with Sheffield Extramurals) , literacy, performances of political theatre, and Trade Union Studies viewing groups (with the TUC). One energetic LEA adult tutor developed a course on local politics as part of expanding his centre's provisions for and about working class people, but this course was attacked in the Sheffield Star and the

Education Committee shut it down. Another course, developed along the lines of a successful course in Leeds, is presently being developed by the Sheffield Workers' Education Group ; this will deal with the political economy of Sheffield. 379

PUBLIC ADULT EDUCATION AND THE REPRODUCTION ------OF WORKINg CIAS'g CULTURE------

For many older working class activists, an important part of their intellectual development was a WEA class in politics or social history. The frequency of such classes has fallen off in recent years, and the story of the Barnsley factory tour offers some insight into why this is the case, as well as giving a general indication of the social nature of the

WEA branch. The officers of this branch, and of many others with which I came into contact, are people with working class origins who have been upwardly mobile, securing a modicum of personal security and satisfaction by rising into the lower professions or positions in the lower ranks of management in the industrial sector. For them, the WEA has been important in helping them equip themselves with a veneer of middle classv culture by broadening their experience. Thus, the factory tour is roughly equivalent to a previous month's visit to a local castle and the next month's night at the performance of a visiting opera compnay. Indeed, by legitimating the success of one of its members in the industrial sphere, the factory tour is in a sense simultaneously a recognition of the industrial culture of the working class and a reinforcement of the anti-union and exploitivatively dangerous conditions of that culture in the capitalist political economy.

How it is that this branch came to be dominated by such politics, or in general how the WEA appears to have lost any general, major, leading role it might have had in the 380 reproduction of working class culture, is an important question.

Some insight into these dynamics is given by the experience of

the Oxford Industrial Branch of the WEA when it attempted in

1975 to set up a festival to commemorate the Levellers killed

in the Burford Parish Church. During a brief site visit to

Oxford, a trade union tutor active in the branch explained

that it was founded as a special branch of the WEA by former

students on day release courses in the auto industry run by

the Oxford External Department. As described in Chapter Five,

such courses were much shorter than Sheffield day release, and

these students wanted to continue their education in industrial

and working class-related matters. They felt that the structure

of the regular Oxford Branch of the WEA, dominated by University

personnel and successful lower-level professionals, would

inhibit rather than encourage their activities. With the

support of some industrial tutors from the Oxford University

External Department, they set up an independent branch and

started to develop their own program. The Burford festival

was conceived as a part of this program.

Announcement of the planned festival provoked a storm

of protest from the Oxfordshire community. Charges that

communist plotters were being invited to spread nefarious 2 propaganda in the Burford Church were made in the local press.

A member of the Oxfordshire Education Committee, who was also

a trustee of the Burford Church, threatened to move to cut off

all Local Authority funds to the WEA if the festival were not 381 cancelled. In the end, the WEA supported the branch and a successful festival was held, contributing significantly to the appreciation of the role of the Levellers in the history of British people's movements, and the branch continues to thrive. The incident indicates the rather great resources of commitment and energy which are necessary if a WEA branch is to persevere in developing a program which deviates from that encouraged by the dominant culture. Given the existence of such pressures, it is logical that many branches would become dominated by those who in their personal lives have used the

WEA as a bridge toward acceptance by that culture.

Yet a commitment to serve the interest of the working class is still alive within the WEA, in sections of the organization's voluntary structure, and particularly among the younger tutor/organizers who are the field staff of the organization. As their staff position title implies, these people are responsible both for tutoring (teaching) adult education classes and organizing new ones. Particularly in

South Yorkshire, this field staff was pushing hard to develop the WEA's work in a manner which contributed to class conscious­ ness and self-awareness. To those elements within the WEA who objected to such development work, the tutors justified it in terms of the Russell Report on Adult Education, an official government advisory body which recommended expansion in four areas :

1. Education for the socially and culturally deprived living in urban areas; 382

2. Work in an industrial context, especially classes held in factories or other workplaces and programmes arranged in consultation with the TUC and with individual trade unions, including courses for shop stewards ; 3

3. Political and social education (which includes) certain kinds of ’role education' for those engaged in local government and in social and political activity;

4. Courses of liberal and academic study below the level of university work. (Sheffield District Workers' Educational Association 1976)

Carrying out such "Russell Category" work in a manner which is conceptualized as serving the class interest is supported by the tutor/organizers' union, the Association of Tutors in

Adult Education. This body is firmly committed to carrying out what it considers as "the WEA's stated purpose as being an organization with a special concern for working class adult education." (ATAE 1976:1). The ATAE claims that the Russell category work being carried out by the WEA is "mainly a result of professional initiatives by tutor/organizers and development officers." Moreover, the WEA nationally has worked out a budgeting arrangement whereby the state funds which account for 85% of the WEA's income are distributed in a manner which rewards Russell category initiatives and cuts the funds of those Districts which lag behind.

A good example of the nature of such WEA development work and its difficulties is the attempt of the Sheffield WEA tutor / organizer to initiate trade union education aimed specifically at women. She did not turn to the Sheffield 383

Branch for assistance in such work ;^ rather, she developed a contact group list from the names of women who had attended

TUC classes, leading women in the Trades'Council, from shop stewards' committees, women and sympathetic men from Colleges of Further Education, and others in a position to help with tutoring. She circularized this list with a call to a meeting to discuss the topic, including in the letter several items which sustained her claim that the existing educational activity did not adequately serve the interests and needs of the growing number of female trade unionists :

Women are now 40% of the total employed workforce.... However women play a restricted role in trade union government - few women are shop stewards -... In Sheffield courses for shop stewards are provided... very few of (those taking part) are women... The WEA in Sheffield would like to work closely with the trade union movement to establish what the needs are and to try to meet them with some specially designed courses for women...

It was being argued that separate courses for women were needed; for this to happen, the general suspicion against any form of separation in the working class movement had to be overcome.

After much discussion, at the first meeting, the argument that women did not get a fair share of existing education, that child care was essential to providing them with education, and that something was needed to remedy this situation, was accepted. Other difficulties arose over which women to try to reach and what to try to reach them with. One member of the group identified three types of women workers : those who don't even know their union, and are not interested in politics; 384

those who see themselves as non-political but know what the issues are and are ready to join in a fight if necessary; and women who are already political. These categories were translated into target groups by the tutor/organizer and a few other women in the group who proposed to meet the educational needs of women trade unionists by 1) putting pressure on trade union officials to expand day release, possibly by providing release for "women only" courses; 2) organize day schools for specific subjects; and 3) to organize once-monthly meetings on a variety of topics which women in the group had described as of interest.

To implement the first proposal, the tutor/organizer visited several trade union full time officials, but met with little success. After 1/2 hour with one official, he responded negatively to her requests with the comment that just because you don't see one-eared newscasters, this did not prove that one-eared people were discriminated against. Similarly, the absence of women on trade union courses did not prove dis­ crimination, he said. More progress was made with voluntary classes, which were planned by the group but administered by the tutor/organizer. A day school was eventually held on health and safety at work problems of special concern to women, and monthly evening classes held with various lectures on the national budget, discrimination in the workplace--the equal pay act, and job evaluation. The decision to administer the classes on her own fit with individual predeliction as well as being the kind of procedure preferred by the WEA. 385

These and other similar developments in understanding the need for trade union education for women prompted a tutor at Sheffield Extramurals to make enquiries regarding state funding of a field organizing project in women's trade union education.^ The WEA reacted hostilèly to this initiative, partly because of confusion, past animosity, and personal difficulties, but also apparently to protect its turf. Without consulting her contact group, the tutor/organizer submitted a counter-application. After much consultation and strained relationships, a program of joint-sponsorship was eventually arranged and there is reason to believe that a permanent advance has been made in this area. Nonetheless, in this instance organizational jealousies and WEA structures conspired to prevent a more thorough integration of the educational work with working people themselves and their organizations. These kinds of difficulties are one justification for experiments like the Oxford Industrial Branch; it is also why the regular branch at Scunthorpe, which is more thoroughly integrated into

working class economic and political organizations, is held up as a positive model.

A widely-publicized WEA development project in

Liverpool has been criticized for similar failures to develop a base among working people. In Adult Education, Community

Development, and the Working Class Tom Lovatt reports on some very interesting and imaginative organizing work to stimulate an interest in adult education among the people who lived in 386 a working class neighborhood in Liverpool. Basing his work upon the kind of analysis of social networks developed in social anthropology, Lovatt argues that his basic organizing technique was to tap into the existing networks to publicize courses being offered and to determine new kinds of courses which should be developed. This eventually led to a set of radio programs which were broadcast nationally, building a wide reputation for Lovatt's approach (Parrott 1973; Newman 1973).

Keith Jackson and Bob Ashcroft, who worked in an educational development project in an adjacent neighborhood, are highly critical of Lovatt's work. Jackson argues that there has been little permanent effect on the community as a result of Lovatt's work, a consequence which follows from

Lovatt's theoretical presumption of the pre-existence of community education networks. In reality, Jackson argues,

Lovatt created the educational network which he claims to have tapped into, a network which was dominated by social workers, clergy in the Catholic church, and other professionals involved in the community but not of the community. Instead of discovering networks, the educational development worker is establishing alliances between his own agency and some aspects of the community structure. It is most important, Jackson contends, to be conscious of the groups with which one establishes such alliances, for a decision to establish with

some leads to the exclusion of others. While the network approach of Lovatt is based on assumptions of community continuity,

Jackson's approach assumes conflict. 387

In their work, Jackson and Ashcroft established alliances around an important issue, the Tory's Housing

Finance Act, and developed proposals for educational work around the issue. The groups to which the proposals were brought responded by demanding that the school deviate from the traditional WEA-day school model of providing several speakers to provide different perspectives on the topic.

Rather, an approach detailing the consequences of the Act as the educationist saw them and outlining a plan of resistance was demanded :

In a sense they were not asking for the passive neutrality we had conventionally considered; they were asking for an informed critique...A member of the team would 'teach' in this context, turning...to the original text of the Act and the debate around it, aiming to produce a full and reasoned statement about its purposes, nature and content, and being in a position to answer questions or direct people to the answers in any situation that might arise out of the original discussion (Ashcroft and Jackson 1974:18).

The meeting generated an enthusiastic response and out of it a number of educational activities developed as well as a tenant-based campaign which came close to seizing control of local government offices.

DEVELOPMENT WORK AND WORKING CLASS CULTURE

The examples included in this chapter have been chosen to illustrate my conviction that the development work which is going on in bodies like the WEA and in LEA Adult Education

Centers have a significant potential to contribute to the reproduction of working class culture. Such work faces massive 388 difficulties, such as organizational jealousy structures which reinforce an individualist organizing orientation, significant opposition from the dominant culture, inadequate educational theory, and dependence upon a voluntary organizational structure which includes within it many people oriented toward individual advancement rather than class solidarity. Significant in its absence from this list are repressive steps on the part of the

State to prevent working class-oriented development work. This 6 is not because examples of such repression could not be found but because in my research state opposition has not been the primary problem. While dependence upon state funding has made programs vulnerable, what has turned vulnerability into actual reinforcement of the dominant culture has been organizational competition and theoretical inadequacy, as well as an inability to clarify the fight against the ideological hegemony of the dominant culture over the minds of workers.

There is one particular initiative in public adult education which has great promise to promote organizational cooperation and which tries to use the media tools of cultural domination to serve the working class interest. It is also partially financed by the state. I am referring to the Trade

Union Studies project, (TUB), which involves the TUC, the BBC, the WEA, and Departments of Extramural Studies, as well as

LEAs in some areas. TUB is a multi-media educational effort aimed at providing trade union education for the broad member­ ship of the trade union movement, not just shop stewards and 389 elected or hired officials. It involves 1) a set of 30 television programs designed to raise for discussion topics of interest to the trade union movement; 2) a set of textbooks to correspond to each 10 TV programs; 3) a set of postal courses for the isolated or committed student who wants to go deeper into the issues raised; 4) study and viewing groups arranged with the WEA and LEA's to coordinate with the programs, as well as day schools for the postal students; 5) the use of video-tapes of the programs in a broad range of day release and TUC shop steward classes. While some of the TV programs can be criticized for being rather more concerned with evoking images than putting forward coherent statements, the best, particularly the one on equal pay, which makes a strong argument for a position on which the trade union movement has taken a firm stand, are very useful. Long sections of the programs are devoted to discussion among rank and file trade unionists--it is in fact their arguments which are featured.

The postal course is extremely ambitious, in its own way an attempt at an academic statement of the emerging field of industrial studies. At the time of the field study, there was still some difficulty in reaching all the projected participants. The various elements of the TUS were most effective when the programs and books were combined in viewing groups. These were either night classes at local Adult

Education Centres, where most of the participants were new, particularly white collar unionists, or the kind of trade 390

union activist who takes advantage of every educational opportunity; or they were regular TUC or day release classes, where the programs provided a useful stimulus to more rigorous class discussion.

In this regard, the TUS represents one of the most positive steps in public adult education, a step which stresses organizational cooperation and a positive role for the state.

While relatively underdeveloped and with a rather small share of social wealth at its disposal, public adult education represents a potential growing point for workers' education, a growing point where working class influence is real and socialized support through the state more assured. NOTES

^In my opinion, both presentations were defective because of an absence of any reference to the dependence of political events in Britain on international developments ; indeed, Woddis replied to a question along these lines with a vigorous defense of the international solidarity manifest by the British working class, rather than indicating how a knowledge of this dependence informed his party's strategy. The school had the positive effect of bringing the Militant Trotskyists somewhat closer to the Stalinists through recognition of their mutual hostility to social democratic tendencies. 2 Actually, the featured speaker was to be a Cabinet Minister, Tony Benn. 3 TUC policy opposed any joint on-plant education.

^At the Sheffield Branch Annual General Meeting which I attended, the temporary Chairperson excused the absence of the regular chair and several other stalwarts with the comment, "The trouble with this Branch is that there are too many octogenarians in it."

^Extramurals provides a large amount of adult education with little working class content as well as occasional developmental initiatives directed at the working class, particularly in community education.

^They might include the decision to cease funding of the Community Development Projects, referred to in Chapter Twelve.

391 CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FULL-TIME HIGHER EDUCATION FOR WORKING CLASS ADULTS

A small number of working class people have the opportunity to engage in full-time study, many at institutions which purport to provide an educational environment designed explicitly for people with their class background and educa­ tional needs. Such working class Adult Colleges have played an important part in the history of workers' education in

Britain and they continue to play an important role.

Perhaps the most important role of these Adult Colleges

for working class people is the provision of academic training

for a large proportion of the tutors, organizers, and staffers of the workers' education network. These institutions remain an important part of the career of almost every working class

lad or lass who becomes involved on a full-time basis in workers' education. In the Sheffield network of tutors,

graduates of such Colleges administer the TUC and aspects of

the day release programs, tutor for the TUC, LEA, day release,

and the WEA, and organize for trade unions like NUPE.

These Colleges are financed largely by the state, and

they remain as well important loci of conflict with regard to

class cultural reproduction. In this chapter, an attempt will

be made to identify the course of this conflict and to assess

392 393 the role of such institutions in the broader process of class cultural reproduction, as well as the nature of some newer opportunities for full time education for adults.

THREE EXAMPLES OF FULL TIME ADULT HIGHER EDUCATION:

Ruskin College

Ruskin is of course the oldest and most well-known of the Adult Colleges for working class people. Throughout its history, the issue of how closely-connected the College should be to the credentialized, university system has remained a point of contention. In 1968, another student strike initiated a series of reforms at Ruskin which were designed to make it a more student-oriented, democratic place. These included the founding of a student union, the development of a new program in Labour Studies not tied to the university examination system, like other programs at the school, and the institution of several joint decision-making bodies. (Pollins 1976) These changes were apparently not adequate for another group of striking students in 1972. They felt more changes were needed, because there remained a contradiction between "the aims and origins of both the college and the individual students, who, coming from working class backgrounds, left the college as middle-class aspirants " (Ruskin Students and Staff 1972:1).

Ruskin has a two year program, and most students arrive at the school for this long period after several years of active involvement in their trade union or local working class community.^ They arrive at the unimposing two story 394 building in Oxford which houses the campus to enter what is typically a political pressure cooker, intensified by the student politics of the surrounding university. There is a real conflict between the highly-factionalized Ruskin student political culture and the academic culture of the school with its commitment to high academic standards and orientation to preparing students for university admission.

Whether or not they go on to university, most students at Ruskin experience significant difficulty in re-entering the communities which they left. Typical of these difficulties were those faced by a train-driver (ASLEF) with 15 years experience who tried to go back to his old job:

After six months, I left and started looking for a job with a union. It just wasn't the same. I tried to be 'one of the lads,' but my mates just wouldn't let me— they just didn't treat me the same. Now I'm working for NUPE, and I like it.

It would appear that the kind of individual who can go back to the old job after Ruskin is the one with extremely high tolerance for such pressures, but this kind of tolerance is associated with the kind of broad range of social experience more typical of middle class people.

Fircroft College, Birmingham

Some see the Adult Colleges as essentially staff colleges for the working class revolution, while others see them as preparatory schools for a working class elite which will be capable of functioning within the normal channels of power within capitalist society. Because of a particularly 395

sharp manifestation of the contradiction between these two points of view, Fircroft College was closed during the field study and is yet to reopen. This College was started by the

Quaker Cadbury family as an outgrowth of the 19th Century

Adult School movement and it has a strong emphasis on community.

This was manifest in a variety of ways, such as a regular morning reading period compulsory for all students and staff and a heavy emphasis on staying at the school on weekends.

In the early 1970's, an authoritarian new Principal added a strong emphasis on remedial reading and writing as a way to prepare students for university. Several confrontations over such policies developed, with students and tutors on one side and the Principal on the other. When a tutor was refused permission to speak at a staff meeting, the students went on strike, barred the Principal from teaching, and started a teach-in on the nature of adult education. The tutors supported the teach-in as an important example of students taking initiative for their own education. Out of the teach-in several new courses evolved, including one on cultural studies which were run democratically. Thus a major issue at Fircroft was the politics of control over education: Is the purpose of adult education remedial, to give the workers a second chance in a fundamentally stable social order, or is it primarily education for opposition, to assist the class in transforming the social order? Shortly after the teach-in began, the

Cadbury's, who retain control despite state financing, shut down the school. 396

Northern College

In 1978, the first courses were beginning at a new

Adult College in South Yorkshire near Sheffield. Northern

College will undoubtedly contribute significantly to the cadre of tutors available for the workers' education network in the

Sheffield Area. Peter Horton, Chairman of the Sheffield

Education Committee and a member of the Council of Management of Northern College, sees the colleges as an important part of developing a working class perspective in Sheffield education.

Formed by a consortium of South Yorkshire Local

Educational Authorities, the new college has several features designed to avoid some of the difficulties encountered at

Ruskin and Fircroft. These include the location of the college in the midst of the area from which most students will be drawn, and therefore less isolation from previous environment ; an extensive structure for student participation and influence; a curriculum plan which will mix longer courses and residential students with short residential and commuter courses for commuters, to insure a continual mix of students and maximize the likelihood of continued student involvement in unions and community organizations; and the provision of courses on community topics as well as trade union and economic issues, thereby making the college a broad working class institution, not just one for trade unionists. The Principal selected for the new College is Michael Barratt Brown, with Keith

Jackson as community education specialist. 397

Adult Colleges and the Reproduction of Working Class Culture

These three examples give some more general indication of the possibilities and difficulties in providing adult educa­ tion for working class students on a full time basis.

Specifically in regard to Sheffield, many of these difficulties have been raised previously in this dissertation; for example, the problem of mediating the contradictions inherent in the notion of worker intellectual were discussed in relation to the day release program in Chapter Five. Because of their 2 individual histories, each of the colleges manifest these difficulties in their own particular way, but they all share preoccupations with the following kinds of problems : liberal education vs. workers' education; working class aspirations vs. middle class aspirations; credentialization vs. institutional activism.

LIBERAL EDUCATION OR WORKING CLASS EDUCATION--Each of the schools has an official commitment to liberal education in the tradition of Tawney and day release. Unlike day release, however, the students are not drawn in groups from their unions but tend to come from all over to completely new "elevating" surroundings. The characteristics of the liberal approach have been described in Chapter Five. This approach has received some of its harshest criticism in regard to the Adult

Colleges. At a one day school convened by the SIT to discuss the closing of Fircroft, one of the papers presented attacks 398 the conception of the liberal approach contained in the official state enquiry into Fircroft:

Explicitly or otherwise, liberal studies are characterized by: absence of partisanship, democratic participation in course planning, the aim of personal development, a range of studies, absence of compulsion, flexibility in curriculum, tutors' freedom on course content and method, student control of curriculum, and freedom from instrumentality for trade union work. It is implausible to suppose that all those descrip­ tions should be cobbled together to form a consistent concept of liberal studies. There is inevitably a conflict between the supposedly neutral or non-partian or value-free content of courses such as Social Economics, Marxist Theory, and even Philosophy on the one hand and the desirability of using such knowledge as is afforded by those courses for the improvement of society or community on the other... It is one of the notorious paradoxes of liberalism that, in its defense of tolerance and impartiality in the matter of beliefs and their realization in conduct, it cannot refrain from practical interven­ tion to promote and to propagate those values in opposition to alternative social doctrines and values. So long as the ideology is dominant in education there can be no hope of reconciling the traditional concept of liberal studies as the development of mind with the demand for social relevance (Kingdom 1976:3-4).

One need not share the conviction that such a contradiction between liberal approaches and the demand for social relevance is inevitable to be able to anticipate conflict. A strong statement of a very different approach to adult education is included in another paper from the SIT conference; in this paper, workers' education is defined as

The provision of educational opportunities for members of the working classes for the acquisition of all that practical and theoretical knowledge which is useful for understanding their position and role in society and for the improvement of their present personal and class situation with an aim to their final emancipa­ tion (Mowatt 1976:5). 399

Theoretically, a liberal approach and such a workers'

education approach should be compatible, for the workers'

education approach stresses content, whereas the classic

liberal position, like the "education across" philosophy,

is not supposed to be tied to content. The WEA quotes

approvingly the works of educational philosopher R.S. Peters:

It is surely the manner in which any course is presented rather than its matter which is crucial in developing a liberal attitude of mind (Workers' Educational Association 1966:6).

In fact, however, as the conflicts at Ruskin and Fircroft

demonstrate vividly, the liberal perspective in the Adult

Colleges has contained a curriculum imperative, that of preparing the adult student for entry into university.

This imperative has been largely justified on the basis of

a particular perception of the needs and desires of the

students entering the colleges. The prospectus of Newbattle

Abbey, one of the colleges accommodated in a stately home near Edinburgh, comments :

The majority of students accepted for enroll­ ment will, however, be those who wish to extend their experience of the characteristic education provided in the college over a period of two sessions (years) and combine it with a carefully planned preparation for and continuance of their education particularly at universities and other institutions of higher education. For them, the two year diploma course in liberal studies is both reward and adequate prepara­ tion (Mowatt 1976:1). 400

If this is the motivation of most students, then surely the curriculum of the college should reflect it. Moreover, if the ultimate justification of the colleges is to prepare a working class elite to represent the class in the corridors of bourgeois power, and the universities remain the access high road, the more the colleges can do to promote credentialization the better. The students at Ruskin in 1972 charged that just such thinking was behind the decision to put the design of curriculum in the hands of those who had designed the Oxford course in philosophy, politics, and economics.

A major challenge to such conceptions of course content has developed around the notion that working people themselves have much knowledge and experience which should play an important part in the curriculum at any college for working class people. The SIT has very actively promoted this point of view. As one SIT publication specifically addressed to the worker new to adult education puts it,

You should not feel like a poor relation when you embark on an educational course; you are a responsible adult and trade unionist... Important decisions must be made about the form and content of every trade union course and you as a trade union student should help make these decisions (Coker 1975:17).

At the SIT day school, a great deal of evidence was presented

that Fircroft had failed to create such an atmosphere. One of

the former students said.

When we arrived at Fircroft we felt we were being handed down crumbs from the rich man's table. The implication was that it was a working man's Eton. We wanted it to be a working man's Fircroft (Murphy 1976:5). 401

From its early days, liberal adult education has recognized the importance of a democratic structure which devolves significant power to students as an essential part of the educational experience. Fircroft obviously failed to implement this recognition, and this was a large factor in the evenual confrontation. However, structures for student participation don’t solve all the problems for the adult colleges, as the 1972 strike at Ruskin indicates. This is because of the problem of WORKING CLASS ASPIRATIONS VS.

MIDDLE CLASS ASPIRATIONS among the students. This is a highly complicated problem since, like day release students, the students at the adult colleges usually have contradictory motivations ; partly such contradictory motivations are part of their decision to come, and they develop more while at the

College. For example, Mowatt argues that 75% of the students entering Newbattle Abbey in a recent year had had significant experience of unemployment during the past year, and that this fact was likely a major part of their decision to apply.

Students at Ruskin continue to enroll heavily in the credentialized programs rather than the non-credentialized ones. Very few of the students do in fact return to their old occupations.

Yet these facts should not be taken as a justification of the domination of the credentialized, university-oriented provision in the Adult Colleges. In the first place, the students are selected by the colleges, and so their aspirations 402

should not be taken as reflective of the general situation among potential students. Second, students apply to the colleges in terms of the programs they presently offer, rather than applying for what they might wish, so in this they are selected as well. Third, despite the first two factors, a significant body of opposition to the dominant curriculum among the students seems to develop each and every year. Finally, while many of them do go on to new jobs, it is not clear how much of this has to do with their desires and how much has to do with the tendency for them to be pushed out of the communities they come from, as described above. Student dissidents argue that it is the colleges job to fight against the alienation of the students from their background which is an inevitable result of leaving their community for idyllic college surroundings. They want curriculum which is conceived as a part of this fight.

This leads to the related issue of CREDENTIALISM VS.

INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVISM. Like the labor movement with regard to the broader society, students at the Adult Colleges have demonstrated that the colleges will either find ways to involve them actively in the development of curriculum, or the colleges with not run at all. They have also made their case for a curriculum which reflects the value of the working knowledge they and their class have developed. From this point of view, the next logical step is to find a curriculum which serves the needs of the class as students perceive them and of 403 which the teach-in at Fircroft was a harbinger. Students and staff at Ruskin urged a more political content to the curriculum, echoing the Plebs call "to raise, not rise out of, our class:"

It seems to us that the major social and political issues of the day are bound up with the debate concerning socialism and capitalism...We would like the college to give us equal opportunity to study the theory and practice of the former along with the latter (1973:3).

The ultimate implication of such an approach to adult education for working class students also echoes the approach of the

Central Labour College :

As practicing catalysts operating from an academic base, we should explore the potential use of our bases, or alternatively nurture the development of community- based Residential Adult Colleges functioning as change agents and focal centres for socialist trade union and community activists (Hammonds 1976:5).

In sum, the Adult Colleges are the focus of a number of contradictory pressures in workers' education. Many of these pressures can be related to conflicting views regarding the most likely way forward for the working class movement, and thus they are intimately related to the question of the reproduction of working class culture. The new Northern

College has an opportunity to attempt to deal with many of these conflicting pressures in a context which appears to be promising, with an experienced staff. It remains to be seen if the self-consciousness about the Adult Colleges, which the

SIT and other organizations, including students' organizations, have generated,can be turned into praxis at the Northern College. 404

It would be inappropriate to end this discussion of full time education for adult working class students without some reference to the fact that some potential students, such as those who have completed the day release course, are finding other alternatives for full time study. Very few working class students have the opportunity to experience the tutorial system at the prestige universities, Oxford and Cambridge, which provide a more or less ideal opportunity to fashion and control one's own education, although not the institution which provides it. However, a few more worker/students had been able to go directly from day release to provincial universities, like the University of Sheffield. While at

Sheffield University, the working class student need not be completely isolated from working class culture. Institutions at the school which draw upon and reinforce working class culture include the left wing groups which dominate student politics. During the field study, these groups participated in an extended sit-in sponsored by the National Union of

Students to protest a doubling of fees for overseas students.

While the academic program at the University in general follows traditional lines, there are some significant possibilities for the class-conscious working class scholar. Students in social sciences, as for example in the politics course, can pursue study leading to research on trade unions, like that of

Taylor described in Chapter Seven. Staff at the University are also active in unions, including a small but growing 405 branch of the Association of Scientific, Technical, and

Managerial Staffs (ASTMS). Sheffield Extramurals has recently

set up a new program to aid the mature matriculant.

Students who wish can attend the one year program in

Industrial Relations and Trade Unions Studies at Middlesex

Polytechnic or, if they have appropriate "A" and "0" level passes, the Industrial Relations course at the Universities in

Kent and Warwick. A final option includes enrolling with the

Open University. This was started about 10 years ago as an attempt to use electronic technology to provide university- level instruction to those unable through work or other considerations to attend a normal university course. While there are no entrance requirements for OU courses, there is considerable controversy over how well the OU has served the working class. Fully two-thirds of the OU's early students had attended some grammar school (Pike 1976:126) and there is a high drop-out rate for working class people. On the other hand, the opportunity to study at home at their own pace has certain attractions for highly-motivated working class students, particularly those with work and community commitments. More­ over, there is a strong working class orientation to some of

the course material generated by the OU, such as the course books on education.

There are therefore a variety of opportunities for

the working class student who wishes to pursue his or her

formal education beyond where it was left when work began. 406

These options include entry into formal universities in regular programs, with the help of special programs for mature matriculants ; special programs in trade union studies and

industrial relations; and the traditional and new Adult

Colleges with an orientation to working class people. Depending upon his or her motivations, the program selected can be

supportive of a variety of personal goals. The point this

chapter has tried to make is that each of these programs, particularly the Adult Colleges, is a significant arena of

struggle over control of class cultural reproduction. Especially

if these Colleges are chosen, the full time adult student will be confronted with the kinds of issues which this

dissertation has raised in a direct and developed form. For

them, the struggle for worker's education which serves the working class will become a very personal matter.

Even for the workers' educator who is not from a

traditional working class background and did not attend one of

the Adult Colleges, the experience at the Colleges has a

tremendous impact on his or her work. This is because of both

the impact of the experience on other working class tutors, and

because the experiences at the Colleges, particularly the

strikes at Ruskin and Fircroft, provide the symbols through

which many of the various points of view about workers'

education are articulated and conceived. The graduates of

these colleges in the Sheffield workers' education network 407

expressed a great deal of ambivalence about the Colleges, and their experience is the touchstone, if not the crucible, of the conceptualization of workers' education held by most full time tutors. The Northern College represents a summation of the lessons of this experience; certainly as much as the research on which this dissertation is based, the experience of the Northern College will be a test of the ability of the network of Sheffield area workers' educators to collectivize worker knowledge. NOTES

^The bulk of students have trade union scholarships, since it is still difficult for adult students to get state grants from their local educational authority. These grants are the way that the typical undergraduate finances his or her University or College education. Trade unionists also sit on the Ruskin Board. 2 In addition to Ruskin, Fircroft, and the Northern College, they include Coleg Harlech in Wales, Newbattle Abbey in Scotland, Hillcroft College for Women in the South, Plater College in Oxford (a largely Catholic institution), and the Co-operative College at Loughborough.

Ana CHAPTER SIXTEEN

COMMUNITY EXPERIENCE AND THE REPRODUCTION

OF WORKING CLASS CULTURE

If in Britain the worker is defined socially by the sale of his or her labor power to the controllers of the means of production, his or her personal and intimate adapta­ tion to this mode of production is focused on the council estate and the broader working class community. A Yorkshire miner on day release lamented the changes taking place in the working class community :

Times have changed and people can now travel out to a wider range of industry, but I find it sad that such close-knit and friendly communities should have to disintegrate. Despite the squalor and the hardships these people suffered in the past, they stand morally and spiritually head and shoulders above the type of persons that the so-called affluent society is foustering on the world (Thomas 1975:7).

The question of the changes taking place in working class community is a recurrent theme in the rather well-

developed body of literature exploring working class community

in South and West Yorkshire.^ The concern expressed in

Chapter Two with regard to Hoggart's tendency to abstract working class culture in the community from various forms of

collective activity can in slightly modified form be applied

to aspects of this literature as well. In particular, there

is, as in the comment quoted above, a tendency to view working

409 410 class culture rather nostaligically, as something which reaches a certain high point in the past, and in the process to obscure the contemporary dynamics of the relationship of working class community and the reproduction of working class 2 culture. The purpose of this chapter is to point out some directions for the study of contemporary working class community culture by identifying certain aspects of this culture in contemporary Sheffield and then to discuss some attempts to symbolize aspects of this community/cultural process in more political and organizational terms.

SCENES FROM SHEFFIELD WORKING CLASS COMMUNITY LIFE;

The Housing Estate

Hampton (1970) presents some interesting evidence of a particularly strong identification with the neighborhood and community in Sheffield, an identification which is almost as strong with the concept of neighborhood as with any particular neighborhood. Since before World War One, the council estate--publicly-financed and built housing for working class people--has been a regular and increasingly important 3 part of the collective adaptation of the working class. The council estates provided the basis for the most powerful and therefore most "educative" development of working class community politics in the history of Sheffield, the Tenants'

Movement of the late 1960's (Hampton 1970). This struggle developed in response to the decision of the Labour Group in the Sheffield Borough Council to introduce a new scheme to 411 make rents in council housing more reflective of the earning power of their occupiers and to cut costs. These measures were resisted by tenants, who were encouraged by dissident political activists to see the measures as a step backward from socialist housing policy.

Tenants formed associations on the major housing estates, and began a campaign for an alternative housing policy, identifying the financial problem as the dominant influence of the capital market in housing rather than inadequate rent receipts from the working class. Their vigorous campaign split the Trades' Council and the Labour

Group, and led to only the second break since the 1926

General Strike of Labour Party control of the local council in 1968. Some modifications in the scheme were forced, and permanent organizations developed on some of the estates, but the Tenant's Movement as an organizational force was quickly dissipated. It still exercises a symbolic influence over many aspects of community life, however, having spawned a number of community action groups and new tenants' associations since

that time.

Gleadless Valley Tenants' Association (GVTA)

The GVTA is perhaps the strongest of the Tenants'

Associations which have had a continuous existence since the

late '60's. In addition to holding monthly dances, which

appear to attract the "cream" of the estate's roughly 14,000

residents, the GVTA is the sponsoring group for a number of

other activities. It convenes regular meetings of a large 412

Over-50's Club and a Sequence Dancing Group. It runs the

Tenants* Hall, organizes the yearly Festival, represents the Gleadless Estate on several city consultative committees and civic occasions, and works closely to insure provision of adequate city services, such as a health clinic, on the estate. At the time of the field study, the GVTA was in the process of organizing the Valley Forum, an organization of all organizations with interests on the estate, including churches, schools, social services, the youth group, the ward

Labour Party, and even the local bobby. According to the president of the Tenant's Association, the political purpose of the Forum was to facilitate the mobilization of the estate in the event of another 1968-type emergency, which he saw as a likely consequence of government cuts in public spending.

This individual was a leading militant in a local working class political party and in the engineering industry, where he was a skilled craftsman. A strong sense of pride in their class has helped sustain him and his family through many of the strains of an active political life. The Vicar of a local

Anglican church on the estate argued that this level of commitment was unusual; the bulk of estate residents enjoyed a rather comfortable life and in general "were not bothered."

His comments were echoed by working class activists who were attempting to build a popular campaign around cuts in social

services. On the positive side, the GVTA is clearly an

example of an organizational form which has channeled the 413

institutional structure of the estate in a political and class- identified manner.

The Woodcraft Folk

The Folk are a sexually integrated youth society affiliated with the International Falcon Movement, 1947 successor of the Socialist Educational International. They are the most current in a long line of attempts to provide working class children with a socialist social experience, the heir to the Socialist Sunday School movement and the still-publishing

Young Socialist. The Folk have regular meetings on weekday evenings in school where they sing songs, are exposed to

socialist morality, and practice crafts. Many of these crafts are derived from Native Americans, who are the symbolic progenitors of "the movement," as its adult leaders refer to

it. In addition to wilderness hikes, the Folk march under

their own banner in the annual Sheffield May Day Parade and at

international youth festivals. The struggling bands of Folk

in Sheffield have recently suffered setbacks consequent to

the decision to close the public schools where they meet in

order to save energy costs.

Workingmen's Clubs

In addition to the "local" or public ale house which

is often a center of local culture,^ a large number of Sheffield workers belong to a variety of workingmen's clubs or sports

clubs. These entertainment halls have a variety of histories.

Some are the consequences of the 19th Century paternalism of 414 the middle classes, when they were founded as "a natural place for (the)... communication of culture and knowledge to the less privileged class" (Taylor 1972:10). These working­ men's clubs were universally taken over by working men in the

1870's and '80's, went through a period of being Radical Clubs, and then, through an attachment to the Labour Party, paradoxi­ cally became non-political. In Sheffield the over 100 such clubs are formed into a single organization where membership in one gives joint membership in all. (The admission of Blacks to the clubs was a big problem until recently, however.) In addition to a bar with its own "local" patrons, the clubs feature live entertainment on weekends, and the biggest pay large sums of money ; they constitute a kind of training ground for London's top nightclub acts. Rather similar to the clubs are the somewhat more modern night clubs and discos, on the one hand, and the usuallyr-employer-sponsored sports clubs, on the other. All these institutions maintain a distinctive, ostensibly non-political but often racist and sexist working class style of entertainment, an interesting conglomeration of music hall, American movie, and slightly dated popular music with raucous, frequently class-identified as well as class-belittling humor. A favorite, distinctively-local story concerned a poacher frying a fish on the lawn in front of Chatsworth, Peak District home of the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke rushed out : 415

"Here, here, my good man; where did you get that fish?"

"Why, out o'yon brook, of carse; what's it t ' the'?"

"You can't do this; this is my trout out of my brook!"

"Oh it is, is it? 'ow did you get it, then?"

"From my father, and from his before him. My great-great great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather got it from the king."

"And 'ow did the king get it?"

"Why, he fought for it, of course."

"Well, then, take off your fancy coat, mate, and let's have a go!"

Yorkshire Miner's Gala

The annual Gala is a huge display of the many facets of working class community. Held each year in one of the four towns which are the center of the South Yorkshire coal field, the festivities begin with a long march and processional, each section of which represents a particular pit village. First comes a kind of "honor guard" of retired miners and branch officials, who are carrying or rolling a frame which holds ' the Union Branch Banner, a venerable icon with pictures and frequently political slogans. (The picture on the main

Yorkshire NUM banner depicts a miner with arms raised climbing stairs labeled "five-day week," "national health service," and

"8 hour day," which mount toward a burst of sunlight over which is emblazoned, "SOCIALISM".) Then come the active miners, who are followed by the pit marching brass band, playing either political songs or some of the ornate numbers developed 416

especially for the frequent band competitions. They are

followed by the pit village jazz band, a uniformed, precision

children's (mostly female) marching unit of kazoo players and baton twirlers dressed in "American Midwest" uniforms. The marchers enter a large park for a day of political speeches, carnival rides for the kiddies, political theatre, and jazz band competition. Their daughters are entered and judged in

contests to select a "Miss Coal Queen" or, for the 3 to 6 year-

olds, "Miss Miner's Lamp."

Rambling in Derbyshire

While most of the activities described above have a communal focus, the typical Sheffield or South Yorkshire worker

spends a good deal of time with his family, often at home watching the "telly." Other favorite pastimes include visiting one's relatives, like as not folks living on another

council estate, or rambling in the Peak District National

Park of nearby Derbyshire. This area of historic and beautiful

countryside is criss-crossed with pathways made very

accessible by frequent busses. (Working people obtained access

to these lands only after long struggles culminating in mass marches into the Peak District.) While such family-centered

recreation has been a part of working class life for a long

time, on occasion informants would express the feeling that

it was more typical now than previously. Certainly the pubs were noticeably integrated sexually except for the more austere

"public bar" section which tended to remain more or less a male province. 417

The Cotninüïilty and the Reproduction of Working Class Culture

BravetTDoan (1974) has outlined some of the major ways in which capitalist social relations of production have penetrated the work process at the point of production. Perlman

(1972) makes a similar argument regarding the capitalist penetration of the community relations and daily life of working class people:

Under capitalism, daily life consists of related activities which reproduce and expand the capitalist form of social activity. The sale of labor power for a price (a wage), the embodiment of labor-time in commodities (saleable goods, both tangible and intangible), the consumption of tangible and intangible commodities (such as consumer goods and spectacles)— these activities which characterize daily life under capitalism are not manifestations of "human nature," nor are they imposed on men by forces beyond their control (p. 3).

I have argued above how a concentration on workers' knowledge and workers' education at the workplace provides an important qualification to Braverman's inattention to the adaptive and defensive cultural mechanisms developed by workers, and a similar point can be made in regard to Perlman's radical reproductionism. While aspects of the kinds of activities

I have described above do contribute to the reproduction of capitalist culture, there are clearly aspects of such activities which don't. Thus, the rather narrow bounds of a definition of acceptable entertainment in the workingmen's clubs has the effect in many situations of reinforcing racist and sexist tendencies in working class culture. An interesting example of how this occurs took place at the Derbyshire Miners' 418

Easter Weekend School. A political theatre group found an enthusiastic response to their material when presented during one of the regular class and lecture periods. When the same group presented a set of progressive songs in cabaret to the students that evening, however, the response was poor, even hostile. A tutor explained that the groups' material violated a community sense of what was appropriate entertainment.

Thus, capitalism can even penetrate into those aspects of working class life which are presumably most open to control by the class. Students at the school responded enthusiastically to renditions of very anti-woman American country songs and anti-working class slapstick humor, presented in a club on the Miner's Holiday Camp premises. In their more private lives, capitalism penetrates social relationships in a thousand different ways ; television and the popular press are obvious examples. At the same time, however, the form of the entertainment is recognized to be distinctively working class, and as such, it is one of many forms of activity which reinforce a sense of separateness and distinctiveness. Tenants'

Associations and movements, housing estates, the Woodcraft

Folk, workingmen'â clubs, working class humour, a South

Yorkshire accent, the Miners' Gala and rambling in Derbyshire are each, in their own way, badges of the kinds of special things which have to do with being working class. As such they play an important part in the reproduction of working class culture, and they can either develop--as in strengthening 419 family ties, or establishing relationships of struggle— or inhibit--as in creating divisions within the class along race and sex lines--the process of reproduction.

A number of political groups and individuals are making hew attempts to develop the culture of the working class community in Sheffield. These attempts are in many ways a complement to older forms of activity, such as the involvement of political activists in the 1968 tenants' movement. The newer forms include:

Political Theatre

A number of British cities now have resident political theatre groups, attempting to develop drama appropriate to working class venues and audiences. At the time of the field

study, an attempt was being made to establish such a group in

Sheffield, and the city was visited by several such groups

during the year. An interview with Red Ladder gives some

indication of the aims of the groups:

When you Write your plays, who do you write them for?

.. .We hope to reach working class people who aren't already involved politically--also sectors of the working class like women who are not usually seen as vanguards.... We often use cultural forms that are already popular with working class audiences like Country and Western music and the bingo game in 'Anybody Sweating?' (a current production). With all our plays we hope to entertain people - that is very important - though there is always the danger that in our efforts to be funny we may swamp the political point we are trying to get across. We realize the danger and that's one of the reasons we constantly revise any show we tour with. 420

Like other theatre groups, you get a grant from the government (via the Arts Council); have you ever felt political pressure from the government over the content of the plays?

No, we have never experienced any direct pressure - it's part of the liberalism of the Arts Council...How­ ever, if a group were to identify itself exclusively with one political organization, it would probably be in trouble (Big Flame, 1977:10).

The "Anybody Sweating?" show was modeled on a tum-of- the-century Music Hall production, essentially a variety act with songs, comedy, dialogues and various sketches. We saw it in a community center in a pit village in Derbyshire, where it was sponsored and tickets subsidized by the Derbyshire

Miners. The show was enthusiastically received by the audience, unlike the cabaret show described above.

Broomhall Cotmnunity Group (BGC)

In an older, still mostly privately-owned section of

Sheffield, advance work for Red Ladder was done by the BCG, a group begun several years ago with the local organization of a survey of housing conditions. It was anticipated that the area would be declared a "housing priority area" by the state and thereby become a target for special funds. In addition to agitating for a proper implementation of such a program, the

BGC run a local Community Shop as an information centre, agitate for local improvements such as an adventure playground for children,^ publish an occasional community newsletter, and intervene in matters of concern to community residents. One

such matter involved filing charges of police brutality in 421

the case of young West Indian residents of the community, and providing them support in court. Through funds from the government's Job Creation Scheme, the BCG was able to hire three full time workers from the community to expand services and take a much more active role in building community sentiment and spirit, including a Racial Harmony Social attended by over

300 local community people.

The Price of Coal

One of the interesting consequences of the invasion of television into the working class home has been a recogni­ tion of the local dialects of Britain. Various televisions dramas, either continual serials or one or more short serial productions, utilize local dialect and local "colour" to attract the large working class audience. Developing out of such productions is a more explicitly working class television.

During the field period, one such political drama, "The Price of Coal" was broadcast; it was set in the midst of the

Yorkshire coalfield. Based on a number of stories about pit life conveyed to the production team (some of whose members have associated themselves with the WRP) by tutors from day release, the two-part series concerned events surrounding a visit to a pit from a member of the royal family. The first installment communicated in a low key but very humourous way the contrast between the sycophantic attitude of the pit management to the impending well-staged, "meet the people," visit, and the annoyance and low level cultural forms of 422 resistance by workers to the "beautification" scheme of management. The second installment dealt with the events surrounding a "disaster" in the pit which took place shortly after the actual visit and which was traceable to short-staffing and postponed maintenance because of the visit.

Cameras record the anguish of the miners' families as they wait for the report of the rescue squad. The "docudrama" uses a compilation of actual events, strung around a narrative line composed of local dialect, spoken by characters portrayed by local people and a few of the stand-up comics from local workingmen's clubs. On several occasions, I was able to watch video-tapes of the programs with audiences of day release students who found the drama accurate and powerful, recognizing within it events that had taken place at their own pits.

Through talking about the plays, they articulated a number of their own feelings about the causes of death and injury in the mining industry and the true "price of coal."

These three are examples of attempts to portray working class community in a symbolic manner which contributes to the class' self-consciousness; like the Tenants' Associa­ tions of the past, they are also examples of attempts to develop a dialogue between the symboling group and the community. The culture of the working class community is not static, although certainly conservative tendencies are there.

Particularly in Sheffield, the working class has developed a 423

relatively stable, often comfortable and satisfying life-style, but even this style is changing rapidly as a consequence of internal developments and the pressures of redundancies, cuts in social services, and other effects of the accumulation process. Whether such changes take place in a manner which helps the class in its struggle or which hurt it depends to an important extent upon the attempts to communicate with it by groups like Red Ladder and the Broomhall Community Group.

Their abilities to communicate, in turn, are greatly dependent upon their abilities to listen to the community and learn from it. NOTES

^Until 1974, these were both part of the Yorkshire "West Riding." The literature includes Hoggart (1958) on Leeds, Dennis, Henriques, and Slaughter (1969) on Featherstone near Barnsley, Jackson (1972) on Huddersfield, Pollard and Holmes (1976) on South Yorkshire, and Hampton (1970) on Sheffield. 2 Related problems in perceiving and analyzing community are discussed in Dennis (1968), and Stacey (1969b).

O Gaskell (1976) argues that the pioneering work of the Sheffield Council with regard to housing "provided the patterns and the parameters which were to govern (British) housing policy until after the Second World War" (p. 197).

^And also the center of a quasi-political and very successful movement to preserve a major element of working class heritage, live English Ale. The Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), has organized a public campaign against the decision of the 5 major monopolies which dominate the beer industry to preserve the ale and thereby boost profits.

^Such playgrounds develop their own equipment with common building materials and involve local people in construction and supervision.

424 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

INDEPENDENT POLITICAL EDUCATION

From its inception, the attempt to collectively symbolize about the working class and its interest has been intimately related to the working class political movement.

The history of the workers' education movement is largely a history of the founding of organizations and creation of movements to work more intensively in particular niches where workers' education seems a possibility, and this dissertation has attempted in this third section to identify those niches in which particularly important forms of workers' education were being carried out at the time of the field study in Sheffield. In this final chapter, discussion is turned to the oldest form of workers' education, that connected with the political life of working class people and attempts to develop their political consciousness within political contexts. Political education is extraordinarily important to the British working class movement, but it is my experience that an inadequate theoretical understanding of the nature of political education is frequently a significant handicap for

British working class political movements. To demonstrate this experience, I will first describe a few examples of independent political education, and then, through a more systematic analysis of the kinds of educational work carried

425 426

out by various political organizations, attempt to draw some conclusions about the possibilities of the political education niche.

THREE EXAMPLES OF INDEPENDENT POLITICAL EDUCATION

The SWP Educational oh the Nature of the State

In a spare room above a city centre pub in Sheffield, the young, officially-appointed district organizer of the

Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) has finished an hour-long presentation, without interruptions, of the party's position with regard to the issue of the state. The five young party recruits listened patiently to a forceful presentation from self-prepared notes on Lenin and the contrast of the SWP position with that of the Labour Party. After the presentation, questions are slow in coming, but finally a young woman asks,

"If there were a revolution in Britain, but not anywhere else, wouldn't the pound fall? I mean, what would we do then?"

The regional organizer answered confidently.

If there were a revolution in Britain, it would be led by the SWP, because we have the correct revolutionary analysis. We would send all our leading cadres and workers to other countries to argue with the workers there to support our revolution, and the repression of the British revolution, whether financial or military, would be stopped by the force of their arguments. We would have to pay particular attention to the US, but we could convince the soldiers there not to attack u s . Who are they, after all? They're workers, just like us.

After the discussion, the group reconvened in the pub over beer, and I expressed my interest in finding out the Party's ideas on workers' education. "There is no workers' education 427

in Britain," I was informed, and then I was treated to an extended analysis of the political situation on the Left in the United States.

Public Meeting of the Trades' Council's Campaign Against Cuts in Public Spending

As something which was to be the high-point of its campaign, the Trades' Council's Sub-committee on Cuts in Public

Spending planned a large public meeting and rally with speakers.

The rather languid pace of the campaign, however, forced a change of location for the meeting from the large city hall to an adjacent smaller memorial hall. A crowd of about 100 turned up to participate in a meeting which was a kind of exemplar of the type of educational meetings run by the "official" labour movement or those groups who want to be considered a part of the "official" movement. The national trade union speaker was the president of a national union, who methodically and logically demolished each of the arguments put forward for the cuts. The local political speaker was the Chairman of the

South Yorkshire County Council, who took the meeting as an opportunity to justify the Labour group's decision to resist national pressures to raise public transport fares:

Our transport policy is a system of socialism in transportation. I appeal to every socialist in South Yorkshire to see the policy as those of us in the Movement see it. Transportation is not merely a commercial enterprise. If we can't run the system as an application of socialism within a capitalist framework, helping the working man meet his budget, me and my lads on the County Council will find something else to do with our spare time. 428

The national trade union speaker stressed the importance of building a campaign to fight the cuts, pointing approvingly to shop stewards' initiatives for transfers of production from socially-wasteful military to socially-useful public purposes as a way out of the economic crisis which was used as a justification for the cuts. He reminded the audience of "the massive influence of the enemies of the working class," but stressed "if you fight the daily battle, the workers will come to know who are their friends and who are their enemies."

The national political speaker was a Sheffield MP, who supported the SYCC transport policy and used the occasion to respond to charges about the Left within the Labour Party as a threat to democracy: "Wherever the upper class is really challenged, that's where democracy disappears." The final speaker was the chairman of the meeting, the Vice-president of the Trades' Council and chairman of the Cuts Subcommittee:

We must stop the cuts, but that can only be done if we organize the masses of working people on the shop floor, in the offices, and in the depots in favor of the correct policies. This meeting has been success­ ful in that information has been passed that will help us do that. The Leeds Centre for Marxist Education (CME) Bay School on "Problems of Marxist Education7”"

In a number of Northern British cities, such centres have recently sprung up as an attempt to bring together

people from a number of political persuasions with workers.

They contend that the spread of Marxist ideas in the labor 429 movement is severely constrained by the organizational requirements of the various political groups in operation, whereas a non-sectarian and non-affiliated centre would have a better opportunity to promote Marxist education.

Addressing the question, "What is Marxist Education? "

Michael Barratt Brown stressed that Marxist education has as much to do with the audience as it does with the content, and that Marxist education separated from the main body of the working class is meaningless. On the other hand, if there is reason to consider present trade union education as bad, some of the problem lies with the Marxists who refuse to get involved. Later in the day, Ruth and Eddie Frow presented an "inspirational history" of the Plebs League and the way. in which it confronted issues of Marxist education. The final speaker, Harry MeShane, described the tradition of independent

Marxist education on the Clydeside from the time of the early shop stewards' movement, and contrasted it with what he claimed was the vapidity of present TUC education. In the discussion that followed among the 25 or so mostly young people from around the North who attended, a member of the SWP attacked the notion that Marxist education could be carried on outside a political party, arguing that attempts to do so inevitably lead to a split between theory and practice. A member of a

Socialist Centre on Tyneside argued that in the present circumstances, when no Marxist party exercised clear hegemony in the working class, attempts to keep political education 430

within the parties just reinforced factionalism. A CME could carry out by proxy the kind of education that a true party should carry out.

"EDUCATIONISM" AND POLITICAL PARTIES IN BRITAIN

Each of these three examples illustrate aspects of the belief in education which permeates many aspects of the

British working class movement. In the first example, educa­ tion in the form of the ability to "argue" is presented as the primary defense of the revolution. In the second, "passing information" is presented as an important part of finding the correct policies around which to mobilize a mass movement.

In the third, debate centers around the proper context for the

(understood) essential task of spreading certain ideas. While some of the perspectives presented appear rather naive, it is important to realize that they in general reverberate strongly with a working class which has a strong tradition of commitment to education and which has constructed the broad range of educational forms described in this dissertation.

The educational niche occupied by independent political education is theoretically of such importance because it is a niche free of any form of control by the dominant culture, and therefore the form which the working class should control most strongly. Practically, however, there are a number of problems. One is the problem of access to the working class, a problem for even the "legitimate" sections of the working class movement,^ such as the cuts campaign. Secondly, there 431

is the question of educational resources; while the Leeds CME has been able to run some extended classes in addition to

"one off" meetings, these classes are administered by the

Leeds WEA and are held in a WEA building, and in that sense dependent upon state finance. In contrast, most political education is in the form of "one off" or single meetings on specific topics. Finally, the sectarianism of the left movement is both an intellectual turn-off to a number of workers and actively inhibits the kind of political dialogue which is truly instructive to a working class audience. Indeed, the kind of political education into which a group directs its energies has as much to do with its internal organizational situation, and its general political analysis, as it does with any evaluation of the results of its past political practice. At the same time, the reproduction of working class culture is particularly dependent upon a situation in which unpopular ideas and postures of implacable resistance can find expression, and it is the niche of political education where this can take place. In fact, many political organizations find their origin in the desire of a group of people to give expression to an idea or set of ideas which are not accepted

in the organizations to which they previously belonged. In this sense, the stress on political education is a natural consequence of the working class political process. Similarly,

the particular approach to education which will be followed 432 by any particular group will depend upon its organizational form and symboling history.

Given these considerations, the remainder of this chapter will focus on the educative style of a number of working class political organizations in Sheffield. This style, and consequently, its impacts, are carried on within particular organizational contexts; in comparing these styles, we will also gain some insight into the impacts of political education as a part of the system of workers' education.

THE EDUCATIVE STYLE OF SHEFFIELD POLTTTCn: ORGANIZATION?---

Sheffield District Trades' Council

The primary "educational" activity of the Trades'

Council is its monthly assembly of delegates. These delegates are elected representatives of the Trade Union Branches affiliated to the TUC, and in theory the assembly's primary function is to establish a collective policy for the Sheffield labor movement. In practice, however, there are a number of constraints on the policy-directing powers of this body, among the more significant of which are: 1) the existence of a strong executive and powerful, long-time president, who are quite capable of stifling assembly initiatives ; 2) a close relationship of this executive to the Labour Group in the

District Council, carrying over from the days when the TC and

Sheffield District Labour Party were one organization (until the early '70's); 3) the existence of other significant local 433

trade union bodies, such as the ConFed and the district offices of large unions like the AUEW; and 4) the political approach of groups active in the TC.

Nonetheless, the TC is definitely the most important forum for discussion and debate concerning political issues facing the trade union movement in the city. Since it is no longer subject to the Labour Party ban on Communists, the TC is used as a forum for raising consciousness on a broad range of local, national, and international issue by political activists from a broad range of organizational and political positions. Perhaps the most interesting debate I observed concerned a narrowly-defeated resolution to condemn Soviet violations of the Helsinki Human Rights Conventions. Because of the relatively high level of political discussion, for the relative newcomer to trade union politics, the TC is an excellent education. Additionally, the TC has recently developed a rather elaborate structure of sub-committees as educating, campaigning, and organizing groups within the trade union movement. The effectiveness of these committees varies greatly because of the factors identified above. For example, the Cuts Sub-committee really failed to generate much of a campaign during the field period. This was a consequence of the problems in NALGO referred to in Chapter Eight, and a rather top-down domination of the committee by the executive, which appeared to be based on a desire to avoid doing anything to embarrass the Labour Group. 434

In contrast, the Chile Sub-committee was extremely effective, carrying out a number of educational functions, including a poster display on repression world-wide and a number of day schools on Chile, organizing significant support through the local labor movement for Chilean emigrees in

Sheffield, and providing material support for the Chilean resistance through the organization of a local boycott of

Chilean goods in the engineering industry. Organizationally, the Chile Sub-committee had made important headway through the

TC structure, by forcing and eventually winning the point that V.'- membership in Sub-committees was open to all trade unionists, not just delegates to the TC assembly. This broadened the recruitment base, and therefore the possible level of activity for all sub-committees, and it broke the essentially conserva­ tive domination of the committee by TC executive members and members of the CP, who were particularly concerned to block the influence of "ultra-lefts."

The Working Women's Charter Sub-committee, in contrast, was also generally ineffective, despite the work of committed feminists, some of whom were associated with Trotskyist groups like the IMG (International Marxist Group). Working effectively through the sub-committee structure is difficult for many groups which, like the IMG, have a political critique which stresses the fundamental bankruptcy of official labor movement structures like the TC. Success in getting the TC to adopt a 435

particular proposal leads to the immediate problem of under­ mining the "bankruptcy" line. Failure is demoralizing for the organization, so it appears to be best when success in the delegate assembly is combined with bureaucratic manipulation by the executive to block or hamper implementation of the successful proposals. The CP, in contrast, follows a political line of building an "broad left" alliance in the labor movement, which by and large comes down to an alliance of the

CP and the LP. In the Trades' Council, this policy generally meant CP delegates supporting the LP-dominated Executive, often in blocking in essentially conservative ways the initiatives of the other political orientations. The kind of politics which works most effectively in the Trades' Council, with sub-committees like the Chile Sub-committee and the Trade

Union Safety Committee (in which Science for People was active), are those which have a positive approach to working within the official labour movement structure. Consequently, effective political workers in the TC are often from the left 2 wing of the Labour Party.

Sheffield District Communist Party (SDCP)

The SCDP has since the Second World War carried on the most elaborate and sophisticated educational program in politics, economics, and even student skills of any organiza­ tion in Sheffield. The people in the Sheffield CP at the beginning were largely drawn from the WWI shop stewards' movement, and the legitimacy of the CP within the labor 436

movement has been closely related to the legitimacy of the 3 shop stewards' movement. This is because of the fact that a dual structure of power within the trade union movement is supported by and supports the existence of alternative channels of political influence. The SDCP has cultivated this close relationship with the shop floor in its educational work as well as in its structure, with emphasis on plant-based Party branches. Formal and informal procedures are used to insure that "industrial comrades" dominate the local party structure.

It was to meet the needs of newly-recruited industrial comrades that the local educational structure was developed. A local structure was initiated, particularly right after WWII, even before the national CP educational structure. This structure concentrated on "developing comrades politically" and used m o d e m pedagogy. A CP tutor criticized the use of lectures in education:

The temptation for the tutor using the lecture method is to dazzle his students with the brilliance of his lecture...At the end of the lecture the students, gasping with admiration, proclaim 'Isn't A. - wonderful! What a wonderful lecture I' After three weeks, all they can remember about it was that it was a wonderful lecture (Klugman 1950(?):2).

The educational structure set up included educational work at each branch meeting, branch and district day schools on

selected topics, women's weekend schools, and occasional week-long sections. A district education committee was set up, and tutors were recruited from among the most active industrial

comrades. 437

It is my impression that some form of this structure has functioned since the late forties and continues to function.

The present education officer for the SDCP described the following as part of the educational opportunities available to Party members :

1. In the branch: the sale of Marxist classics^ and group reading; presentation of educationals on topics of popular political interest; study sessions on topics like political economy ;

2. District level : Yearly weekend schools on women, imperialism, etc., held at Wortley Hall; industrial day schools open to active trade unionists not in the Party, in order to recruit them; festivals of Marxism at Sheffield Poly for students and young workers; public meetings on selected topics;

3. Yorkshire area level: special higher level day schools, led by university tutors in the Party; introductory classes for new comrades from several branches ; week-end Communist Universities ;

4. National level: schools for full-time officials of the Party or for leading industrial comrades ; holiday schools; the Communist University (a week-long school with international speakers, like L. Althusser); a national theory and ideology committee; party journals, including the daily Morning Star and specialized organs, like Education Today and Tomorrow, and Soviet Studies.

Because of the class orientation and the quality of this educational program, the education officer claimed that the

Party "staffed the labour movement with products of Communist

Party education for the last 20 years.

Some younger CPers (referred to as "Gramsci-ists") were critical of the educational program for its strong inward orientation, however. Such an orientation, they claimed, tended to create a contradiction between the party member and 438

other workers, as well as the tendency to treat those who adopt other political positions as class enemies (Hobshawm 1977).

There were a number of experiences in the field which demonstrated the political and social isolation of the CP, an isolation no doubt contributed to by the repression of party members in the forties and fifties. In this regard, CP education has helped to create another barrier to the collectivization of working class knowledge. Other political organizations, like the SWP and, an extreme case, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, follow the CP in replicating this disjunction between the educative style of internal education and propaganda work with those outside it. The WRP funds a large educational Centre in

Derbyshire; at a public commemoration of Trotsky's assassination, the educational director explained its purpose:

The training of revolutionary leadership as dialectical materialists is the first responsibility in this time ; the issue of the day in the Middle East is the training of a revolutionary leadership; the revolution will only be led by a trained leader­ ship . What our movement alone (the WRP) has is the history of continual struggle to train revolutionary leadership. The question of training revolutionary leadership is the question of the day, for we must fight for the political indepence of the working class.

Political groups like Big Flame, many independent socialists, and those involved in sectoral movements like the women's movement took a very different atttitude toward education. These people were instrumental in developing alternative forums for political education like the Centres for Marxist Education and the Socialist Forum in Sheffield. 439

The purpose here was to develop a meaningful political dialogue

among groups on the left and with a working class audience.

Attempting to do organizational work in such contexts is

difficult, but the contribution to the clasds ability to

reproduce its culture may be commensurately greater. NOTES

have chosen to discuss the educational activity of Trades' Council and the Labour Party within this chapter on "independent" education for a number of reasons, which range from the oppositional character of such education to an overall analysis on my part that, despite the proliferation of joint bodies in the workplace and community spheres, participation on such bodies does not in and of itself constitute incorporation of the participating group into the state, just as acceptance of state funding does not make a political theatre group a part of the state. The kinds of creative, educational contributions to the reproduction of working class culture described in this dissertation demonstrate that the question of "being an arm of the state" is contingent and not to be determined merely by theoretical symbol manipulation. 2 The LP itself carries out little structured education, with the exception of some new CLP initiatives in Sheffield. The national struggle between "left" and "right" in the LP, however, which has analogues in Sheffield, is extremely educative for the LP activist.

O This close relationship of the CP and the stewards' movement should not be taken as CP domination, but rather as an indication of the fact that the shop stewards' movement is the arena of the Party's most effective work, and that successful stewards tend to be more political.

^The Communist Manifesto, The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State,and State and Revolution.

^The existence of such a big CP educational program helps explain the relative absence of social and political education in the WEA program.

440 CONCLUSION

At a most basic level, the purpose of this dissertation has been to document the existence of a wide variety of forms of workers' education in Sheffield and the existence of educational work in other areas of the country which impinges directly on Sheffield. While quite obvious to me now, this point is by no means universally accepted; in fact, shortly before leaving for the field I received a letter from a famous

British social scientist who informed me in no uncertain terms that there was no workers' education to speak of to be studied I

Despite my desire to complete a census of all forms of workers' education rather early in the field period, hardly a week went by without my discovering some activity about which I had heard little or nothing until that point.

This leads to the second conclusion, that the various forms of workers' education form no neat, rationalized pattern; instead, they are carried out in a wide variety of styles and contexts, in differing states of articulation with and isolation

from each other. The decision to describe the various forms in terms of the niches which they occupy was an attempt to introduce some analytic order into this convoluted cultural pattern; fundamental similarities of possibility and limitation--

structured through the extent of social wealth allocated to

the form and the characteristic structures, or lack of them.

441 442

for working class control over it--are shared by each program operating within the niche. The notion of niche also helps explain the rather significant ignorance of what is happening in some programs combined with extensive knowledge of others ; among my informants, same niche and knowledge tend to be highly correlated.

Yet my third conclusion is that the symboling in all of these niches together has a significant overall impact on the reproduction of working class culture. This is to say that the impact of any one program is mediated significantly by the impacts of the others, and that it is reasonable to speak of a total pattern of workers' education impact, impact both on the individual and on the group. This conclusion also conflicts with a tendency manifest by the workers' educators who were my informants, a tendency to relate to the impacts of their particular work as if it were abstractable from many or even almost all other forms of workers' education.

It is for these reasons that I choose to refer to a system of workers' education, a set of institutions and the cultural niches they occupy, which are involved in the generation and collectivization of working class symboling. This system is not "systemic" in the sense of the equilibrium, functionalist tradition; these are not well integrated institutions connected by harmonious structural and cultural relationships. Like the broader working class culture of which they are a significant part, the components of the workers' education system are often 443

poorly articulated and even competitive. Nonetheless, the total impact of the other forms sets a major part of the context within which any particular form has its effects.

Thus, the kinds of educational work which make sense on day release are in part a function of the public educational

system and the extent to which a working class perspective is manifest in this system. It is an unfortunate aspect of an expository plan which takes as its structure a set of forms, as this dissertation has, that it tends to convey a sense of greater separateness than is perhaps warranted. It has been my intention in Sections Two and Three to indicate the connections between one form and others, but this has not always been adequate. Thus, trade union shop stewards' education is modeled to a significant degree on day release as well as being dependent upon the generation of knowledge at

the point of production; public adult education is often

connected to the groups generating working class knowledge

in community experience, etc. At the same time, it was pointed out that political education is frequently less articulated with the knowledge generated at the work place than it might be, or that shop steward training is limited by the materials

generated through working class-oriented research. Of course,

such non-systematic systems are just what a perspective which

stresses cultural struggle and relationships of dominance and

subordination prepares one to expect. 444

It is this which leads to my fourth conclusion, that the results of my research in Sheffield on workers' education provide a strong demonstration of the value of a reproductionist approach to the cultural dynamics of complex societies. This is true despite a number of factors which limit the generaliz- ability of the research. For example, as pointed out in

Chapter Nine, the research did not focus on the whole process of class cultural reproduction, but only those aspects of it which could be approached through workers' education. While

I feel confident that I can speak about the potential and actual impacts of these forms on class cultural reproduction, as well as some of the structural features which keep the actual from reaching the potential, these do not constitute an adequate overall account of working class cultural reproduction. While several references have been made to the effect of cuts in public spending on the political economy of labour, for example, no attempt has been made to follow out these effects systematically.

Nonetheless, the concentration on workers' education has demonstrated the validity of the general outlines of a more adequate model of class cultural differences. It suggests that, in general, working class symboling activity must be either examined or demonstrated to be virtually non-existent; this must be done in any complete account of cultural process in any society where a significant part of production is carried out by those who neither own nor control the means of production 445 which they use. In essence, the study anticipates a coopera­ tive study of the cultural, organizational, and political economic aspects of such social formations, a study in which the various contributions of these perspectives are related dialectically to each other and their interrelationships examined. In newly emerging socialist countries, for example, the question of what political economic conditions are most conducive to the development of more effective working class symbolizing is highly appropriate.

This last point, of course, raises the issue of the practical consequences of the research. I am reminded of the comments of the tutor quoted in Section II, who was asked about the practical effects of industrial education--would it cut down the number of strikes? This tutor disclaimed any knowledge of the effects of such education on the number of strikes, but he supposed that those on strike would be more articulate. What appears to one person as a "practical" matter may appear to another to be an exercise in ideological hegemony. A similar kind of problem has always appeared when I have attempted to maintain a strict "theory" vs.

"applied" differentiation as an anthropologist involved in a number of different research projects over the last ten years.

When anthropological problems are investigated through field work, the value of the research is always measurable in terms of the applicability of the theory developed to the particular field context which is alleged to have stimulated it. In this 446 sense, there should always be highly practical consequences for field work; the extent of the practical consequences is determined by the relevance to the field situation of the problem under consideration. The extent to which the theory becomes implemented in policy, of course, is determined by other factors.

This suggests that it is incorrect to see a problem in applied anthropology as a problem without a significant theoretical dimension. There is some question in my mind as to whether any such "non-theoretical" problem should be considered a problem at all; or whether or not what one is really dealing with in such situations is the work of an anthropologist who is operating within a set of ideological constraints, either self-imposed or imposed by those employing him or her; constraints which minimize the extent to which the "research" is dependent upon empirical phenomena and which therefore make it rather more like the rhetorical symbolizing which, in Chapter Seventeen, I argued was one of the problems with the approach to political education of sectarian groups. I really doubt if such activity should be called research.

For these reasons, I consider this dissertation both theoretical and applied; in the best tradition of science, it derives its sense of problem from consideration of a major aspect of prior research, while at the same time it is constructed to have relevance to the practical problems of those whose 447 knowledge it attempts to collectivize. Moreover, it was

designed in a manner which allowed the testing of particular

research findings within the action system which was being

investigated. This suggests a final comment: rather than

attempting to distinguish between "theoretical" and "applied"

research, it is perhaps more important to distinguish between

isolated theory and theory tested in practice, or praxis.

Anthropology need not dedicate itself to the reproduction of working class culture in order to achieve relevance, but a

closer attention to the consequences of having its theories

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